Birds of a Feather
by lerouret1
Summary: Here's how Sam Wilson can spend his one week off: Sleeping on Steve's couch, worrying about his mother, replacing a roof in the Florida heat, being envious of Clint Barton's beautiful life, and putting up with Bucky Barnes' drinking, swearing, pranking, and aggressive pig-headedness. Or, he could just stay home. Sam is desperate enough that he decides to go with Option #1.
1. Chapter 1

**1.**

"You sure you can't stay for supper, sugar?"

Sam crawled backward over the faded blue linoleum and peered around the toilet. "No, Mama," he said patiently. "I got to get to the VA tonight."

"Oh, that's right," said Mama complacently. "I forgot." She looked at the guts of her guest bath toilet, slimy and dripping on the floor. "That looks real complicated," she said worriedly. "You sure you don't want to call your father for help, Samuel?"

Sam Wilson's father had died five years ago. He bit down the sharp retort reminding her of this and swallowed the phantom twinge of grief.

"No, Mama," said Sam, grunting as he struggled with the lower bolt. "I got this. Why don't you, uh, watch Judge Judy?"

"I suppose I could, couldn't I?" said Mama, vaguely surprised. "What channel she on again?"

"I got her set up for you on the DVR, Mama. Just push play," said Sam. The bolt grated, then turned. Dirty water drizzled down Sam's hands. He sat up and braced himself on the toilet seat, preparing to stand. Mama was still watching him, smiling.

"I can't help you, sugar?"

"No, Mama, this is kinda a one-man job," said Sam. "You could, uh, get me some iced tea."

"I can do that, Samuel," said Mama, and shuffled away, her slippers making little squeaking noises.

Sam pulled out the rest of the broken valve and mopped up the water. He had just cracked open the packaging for the new valve and flapper when he heard the scrape and squeak of his mother re-entering the bathroom. She was empty-handed. "You sure I can't help, sugar?" she said, smiling.

"No, Mama," said Sam. "I got this. You go watch Judge Judy."

"I could do that, couldn't I?" said Mama thoughtfully. She stood still and watched her son maneuver the new valve in place. "You sure you can't stay for supper?" she asked. "I got some sweet potato pie."

"No, thanks, Mama," said Sam. "I got to get to the VA tonight."

"You sure do go there a lot," she said. "That looks real complicated. You want me to call your daddy to help? He was always good at this kind of thing."

"No, Mama, I'm almost done," said Sam, trying not to grit his teeth. "Why don't you go watch Judge Judy? I know you like watching her."

"I do," she agreed. She smiled. "You want to stay for dinner, sugar?"

Sam checked his watch. The night nurse was late. "Sure, Mama," he said, trying to keep the fatigue out of his voice. He could call Margie to take his session at the VA.

He knew he shouldn't keep count, but Mama told him five times over the next ten minutes, while he was struggling with the new flapper, that his father was very good at this sort of thing and Samuel really ought to call him for help. She also offered him iced tea three times, but never brought it.

Sam was so tired.

He mopped up his mess and put the old flapper and valve, along with the packaging for the new one he'd just installed, in the plastic home improvement store bag. As he washed his hands, he could hear his mother moving around in the living room, her heavy, faltering step and the opening and shutting of a drawer. He dried off his hands and walked quickly into the living room, alert. His mother was standing at the window, staring out into the darkness, and she was holding an envelope in her hand.

"What'cha doing, Mama?" he asked, pitching his voice low.

Mama started and turned, eyes wide and mouth round. She put one hand on her breast and smiled.

"Why, Samuel!" she exclaimed. "You sure did surprise me!" She shook her finger playfully. "You ought to let me know when you coming over. I would have had a plate ready for you."

"I've been here two hours, Mama," said Sam, trying to smile.

"You have?" Mama looked shocked. "What have you been doing, Samuel?"

"I fixed your guest bath toilet," said Sam. "And I'm going to have dinner with my favorite girl." He grinned. "You." He swept her in for a peck on the cheek, and while she chuckled and embraced him, soft and smelling like lavender and old urine, he slipped the envelope out of her hand.

"Oh, that's important," said Mama.

Sam looked at it. It was her mortgage interest statement from two years ago. He and his sister Mary had torn the house apart trying to find it that April, and had ended up ordering an extra copy from the mortgage company. "I see that, Mama," he said lightly. "Why don't I file that for you? Then we'll always know where it is."

"What a good idea!" exclaimed Mama. "You sure are a smart, handsome boy, Samuel." She paused, brow furrowed, and said, "Why you ain't married yet?"

"I just haven't found anyone good enough to be your daughter-in-law," said Samuel, slipping the envelope in his pocket. "Now, I'm gonna take the trash in the bathroom down to the dumpster, and then we're gonna see about some supper. That sound good, Mama?"

"That sounds perfect," said Mama, pouchy face wreathed in smiled. "I'll set the table." She shuffled to the kitchen, her worn plush robe swinging around ankles swollen with diabetic edema.

Sam hurried across the condo parking lot to the dumpsters. Every step away from Mama's front door felt like a rubber band stretched tight, pulling him back. As he trotted back up her stairs, he realized with a jolt that she might have tried to go to the bathroom in the guest bath, and the tile might still be damp. Fighting back panic, he burst through the door, mind full of Mama lying in a pool of blood on the old blue linoleum. However, Mama was standing in the middle of the living room, staring blankly at an old magazine. She looked up in surprise as he entered.

"Samuel!" she exclaimed, delighted. "What are you doing here?"

"You invited me for dinner," said Sam, deflating in relief. He gave his mother a hug and kiss – the third since he'd arrived several hours ago – and said, "Can I set the table?"

"Of course you can," she said warmly, patting his cheek. "What a nice boy you are, Samuel! Don't forget to set a place for your father," she added, waddling into the kitchen. "Guess he's working late tonight."

Out of her eyesight, Sam let his head droop. Hopefully she'd forget about that by the time they ate.

Sam was halfway through his cold takeout chicken, overcooked noodles, and pulpy sweet potato pie when the night nurse finally showed. "Sorry," she grunted, setting down her bags and shucking her rain coat. "Got stuck in Bethseda."

Sam didn't comment. He knew what DC traffic was like.

Mama was just pushing another piece of sweet potato pie on the nurse when his phone chirped. Thinking it was Margie at the VA, he glanced down, then raised his eyebrows.

 **STEVE: Hey, what do you know about replacing roofs?**

"You want some sweet potato pie, sugar?" smiled Mama.

"No thanks, Mama, I just had two pieces," he said. "It was real good."

"Why, thank you, Samuel," she beamed. She turned to the night nurse, who was checking Mama's meds. "Isn't my Samuel a good-looking boy?" she said hopefully. "Best looking child I ever had. He looks _just_ like his father." He paused, looked around the table, and frowned. "I guess he working late tonight."

The middle-aged, married night nurse exchanged an amused glance with Sam. "Now, Mrs. Wilson, all your children are good-looking," she said, and filled a glass of water. "Here you go. Your pills for the night."

"Oh, my," said Mama, looking down at the little pile, perplexed. "There certainly are a lot of them."

"'Scuse me," said Sam. "I got to get this." He got up and started to type.

 **SAM: I'm no contractor but I know how to replace shingles. Why? You run outa money to pay someone to do it? Or are you just a bored old retired dude?**

 **STEVE: Ha ha. No, Bucky wants to fix a neighbor's roof. She can't afford it and won't accept charity.**

 **SAM: Good for him, taking an interest.**

 **STEVE: Hold on**

 **STEVE: OMG**

 **SAM: What?**

 **STEVE: He** 's **looking up videos on YouTube**

Sam shook his head with a smile.

 **SAM: Trying new things is good for him, expands his horizons.**

There was a pause during which Mama offered him another piece of sweet potato pie. Sam declined politely and waited while the night nurse convinced his mother to change into her pajamas. Sam's phone chimed again.

 **STEVE: He's going to destroy something if he tries to do it alone. What do I say to try to stop him?**

 **STEVE: There must be some psychological tool I can use on him to keep him from trying to do this alone**

 **STEVE: Help me**

 **STEVE: Please**

 **SAM: Allowing him to extend charity to those who need it is a healthy way for him to process guilt from his previous actions**

 **STEVE: Come on man**

 **SAM: Seriously, how much damage can he really do?**

 **STEVE: With a hammer and crowbar, unsupervised? This doesn't concern you a little?**

 **SAM: Cut him some slack. You know he likes learning new stuff. Helps his brain recover.**

 **STEVE: Stop playing the trauma card.**

 **STEVE: OMG he just found a cat video and he's mesmerized.**

Sam helped the night nurse convince Mama to put on pajamas because it was night, and you wore pajamas at night. He spent five minutes explaining to Mama that Sam wasn't wearing pajamas because he had to drive home soon, and he couldn't drive home in pajamas. Yes, it was night. No, the night nurse wasn't wearing pajamas, she was wearing – yes, fine, they were pajamas, Mama; could you please just put on your pajamas for me? Please?

The night nurse thanked him, and he sighed and returned to the kitchen to finish the dishes. Mama had burned the sweet potato pie again. She had never burned pies before. Sam's heart hurt in ways he didn't think it could, even after Iraq.

His phone buzzed. He dried his hands and checked. Steve again. My god, could the world survive a retired Captain America?

 **STEVE: Bucky has just watched twelve cat videos**

 **STEVE: And now he's watching a Pop Tart cat pooping a rainbow**

 **STEVE: And talking about My Little Pony**

 **STEVE: Apparently the white pony has a white cat. He still says he can fix the roof.**

 **STEVE: He just put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge**

 **STEVE: Who eats breakfast at twenty two hundred anyway?**

 **STEVE: Do you see the problem here?**

Sam sighed. He loved Steve like a brother, but it got old playing Freud for Captain America's personal Manchurian Candidate. Before he could reply, Steve sent another text.

 **STEVE: I hope I can talk him out of it. You are no help whatsoever, by the way.**

 **STEVE: I just need to keep Bucky off Mrs. Schumacher's roof before he falls through it and wrecks her place even worse than it's already wrecked.**

 **SAM: Think you should let him give it a shot.**

 **STEVE: Has anyone ever told you you're a pain in the ass?**

 **SAM: Part of my charm.**

 **STEVE: I think you need to look that word up in the dictionary.**

"You want some sweet potato pie, sugar?" smiled Mama. She stood buck-naked in the kitchen, the night nurse hurrying after her with a pair of adult diapers and a harried expression on her face.

 **ME: I gotta go. But I still think you should let him.**

 **STEVE: If I do, you need to come down here and run interference.**

"No, Mama," said Sam gently, guiding his naked mother out of the kitchen. "Pie's all gone and I washed up. Time for bed."

"Already?" said Mama, looking bewildered. "But you just got here, Samuel!"

"Come on, Mrs. Wilson," said the night nurse good-naturedly. "It's nighttime. Let's get ready for bed."

 **SAM: Kinda busy here, Steve.**

 **STEVE: YOU. ARE. RETIRED.**

"But we haven't had dinner yet," argued Mama. She looked up at Sam, her eyes hurt and confused. "I have to get you some dinner, sugar," she pleaded.

"We had dinner, Mama," said Sam gently. "It was real good, too. Mm," he said, smiling and rubbing his stomach. "I had two pieces of that sweet potato pie."

"You did always like my sweet potato pie," said Mama, her face collapsing into smile lines. She turned to look at the nurse. "Oh my," she whispered. "Samuel, _there's a white lady in my kitchen."_

Sam was going to introduce them again, but realized at the last minute he had no idea what this particular night nurse's name was. They'd gone through so many. "She's just here to help us out, Mama," said Sam. "Now go put on your pajamas."

"Why?" asked Mama, bewildered, as the night nurse led her back to the bedroom.

 **SAM: You're an asshole.**

 **STEVE: Language, Wilson**

Sam put the phone down and helped the night nurse wrangle Mama back into her pajamas. The new meds worked a lot faster than the old ones, and she was getting sleepy and compliant. Still, it took them both to get her into the low bed in her pink, rose-papered bedroom, and she fussed until Sam moved the photo of his parents, a very old one that had been taken at a Sears Photo studio, lined up so she could see it from where she lay. He kissed his mother good-night, promised her he'd see her the next day, and followed the night nurse into the kitchen. She had her kit out, and was organizing meds and supplies.

"We good to go?" he asked, stretching out his back. Crawling around on the linoleum was hell.

"I believe so," she said. She smiled at him, professional, competent. "She'll be fine. I'll call you if there's anything to be concerned about."

"Of course," said Sam, gripped again by guilt. It felt horrible to leave Mama here with a virtual stranger, despite how much money he laid down to the Home Health agency for the privilege of sleeping in his own bed every night. "You've got my home and cell – "

"WHO ARE YOU?" Sam and the nurse jumped reflexively. Mama was standing at the bedroom door, pointing accusingly at the night nurse. She had wet herself, the adult diapers unable to contain all the liquid. "Samuel! How dare you bring this woman into my house? Just wait until your father gets home!"

Sam bit back a groan. He was so, so tired.

Once he had calmed her down and the nurse had her settled into bed watching Judge Judy on DVR, Sam checked his phone. Steve had left a string of messages, ranging in subject matter from Bucky's pig-headedness, the Homeowner's Association Committee Meeting the night before at which Bucky had caused a stir with his proposal to curb the incidents of dog shit on lawns, and a sudden and disturbing interest in Florida State property tax laws.

Sam closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Steve could be exhausting. He could only imagine what it would be like if Bucky took it into his Swiss cheese brain to text message about the same subjects.

 **XXXX**

He could've asked Clint, because at that moment Clint Barton glanced down at his phone, chiming softly on the table next to his work bench. He opened the text message and smiled.

 **BUCKY: U KNOW HOW 2 INSTALL A NEW ROOF?**

 **CLINT: SURE, NEED HELP?**

 **BUCKY: PLS? KIDS OK?**

 **CLINT: SUMMER CAMP, LAURA IS A COUNSELOR, I'M BORED, BE THERE TOMORROW**

 **BUCKY: TKS**

Clint drained his beer bottle, threw a tarp over his latest project, and went upstairs to pack.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

It was generally understood that Bucky was better friends with Clint than with Sam.

It was also generally understood that Steve was better friends with Sam than with Clint.

Not being middle school-aged girls, this didn't bother any of them. It also made visits easier. Clint stayed with Bucky. Sam stayed with Steve. Everyone was happy.

Clint played video games and drank margaritas and picked up after Bucky.

Steve played jazz and drank coffee and picked up after Sam.

No worries. No concerns. Visits to Sarasota were punctuated by grilling out, fishing, going to the beach, Steve's percolator, and Bucky's prolific lime tree. On those occasions Clint brought Laura and the kids, Bucky was in a carefully modulated persona of Fun Uncle, concealing his normal triumvirate of booze, cigarettes, and strippers in favor of sand castles and popcorn shrimp and weekend trips to Disney World. And on those occasions Sam brought his single sister, Steve was a tad more careful about walking around in nothing but his underwear. (Bucky was not.)

It was also generally accepted that there was no Sam-and-Bucky. Flight suit wings and car steering columns violently ripped from their owner's possessions had a tendency to put a damper on any progression of a relationship. It wasn't that the two disliked each other. The combination of Steve's presence, Sam's good nature, and Bucky's insouciance smoothed over past issues, but neither man could completely ignore the elephant in the room. Considering how many times the Winter Soldier had tried to kill the Falcon, no one blamed Sam.

No one considered that Bucky blamed himself.

Nor did anyone really put any thought into whether or not the accepted couplings of Steve-and-Bucky, Steve-and-Sam, and/or Bucky-and-Clint would translate into an additional complication called Clint-and-Sam. If anyone had bothered to parse it, chances were that no red flags would go up. Sam was calm and reasonable. Clint was calm and reasonable. They didn't hang out much, but when and if they did, nothing untoward happened. It was a non-issue.

As with most non-issues, the reality of it got a little complicated by the original coupling of Steve-and-Bucky.

This surprised no one, especially not Clint-and-Sam. If anything, by the time they caught up with each other at the Atlanta airport, they were braced and ready. They had only worked on one mission together – a successful foray into Belarus to take down a former Soviet arms dealer – and although they were cordial, they really didn't know each other on a social level. Sam liked Clint, though he was wary of the knife-blade sarcasm that masked a career skeptic's weltanschauung. He'd never met Clint's family, though Wanda had informed him that Steve and Bucky both were "besotted" with Laura, that Baby Nate called Steve "Unka Teeb" and insisted he be carried everywhere, that Cooper worshipped "Uncle Buck" because he'd played minor league baseball back in 1936, and that Lila had both of them firmly wrapped around every single one of her ten little fingers.

Sam almost missed his flight out of Dulles. His older sister Mary, who reluctantly agreed to watch over Mama during his absence, had failed to factor in DC traffic, and the night nurse's shift had ended over an hour before. There was little time to explain, for the seventh time, to Mama that Sam was going on vacation, much less fill Mary in on Mama's morning routine.

He received fourteen texts and six phone calls in the cab on the way to the airport, at the baggage check-in, in the security line, and while he was sprinting to his departure gate, all from his sister, ranging in subject matter from Mama's morning medications to the password for Mama's internet connection. It had been a relief to turn off his phone once he settled in his narrow seat, panting and ignoring his fellow passengers' glares at the delay. No one should admit they have a preferred sibling, but Sam privately acknowledged Mary was not always his favorite.

Atlanta Hartsfield is massive, a Brobdingnagian behemoth among airports, sleek and noisy and teeming with humanity. Sam shouldn't have been surprised Clint spotted him in the throng, considering Clint's sobriquet, but to be fair, Sam had been distracted by the seven new text messages he'd gotten from Mary about Mama's incontinence, how much adult diapers cost, and the state of the hallway linen closet.

"Long time," grinned Clint. He looked tan, rested, and healthy. Sam resented him a little for that.

"It has been," he acknowledged, making a conscious decision to not mention what had been occupying his time for the past year. Clint's handshake was quick and strong, much like the man himself. "How's the family?"

"All at camp," said Clint, swinging along beside Sam toward the tram. "I really should be screening in the new gazebo, but that can wait. Charity first."

"True that," agreed Sam. His phone chimed, but Sam ignored it.

"I'm proud of Bucky," said Clint. "He's really gotten the hang of this altruism thing. Good for him, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Sam. His phone rang, and Sam set his jaw. It rang again. What part of _I need a break_ did Mary not understand?

"You gonna get that?" asked Clint mildly after a moment.

"I know who it is," said Sam, a little shortly.

Clint only raised his eyebrows.

It took twenty-five minutes to get from the arrival gates in Concourse C to their connecting gate in Concourse A. During that time, Sam counted seven new texts and two phone calls. If Clint noticed Sam's phone blowing up, he didn't say anything about it, simply making small talk about Wanda Maximoff's post-graduate work, the BMX championships, and the amusing saga of treating a neighbor's chicken for something Sam couldn't believe was actually called bumblefoot.

Sam excused himself when they got to the gate. He had enough time for one quick phone call before boarding.

"Samuel." Mary sounded angry. Sam could hear Mama's voice, shrill with worry, in the background. "What is Mama talking about, going to church? She doesn't go to church on Tuesdays, does she? You didn't say anything about taking her to church."

"She gets confused what day it is," said Sam. "Sometimes she just fixes on something. Tell her it's not time for church yet, and she'll stop asking for a few minutes."

"But it's Tuesday," Mary argued. "She doesn't go to church on Tuesday. I told her that and she won't listen, Samuel!"

"She doesn't know what day of the week it is," said Sam. "Just tell her it's not time for church yet."

"But she keeps asking!"

"I know," said Sam. "She does that. Just keep telling her it's not time."

"She doesn't _go_ to church on Tuesdays!"

"I know, Mary," said Sam, fighting back an angry retort. "But _she_ doesn't. Just play along a little and she'll forget about it."

"I'm not lying to my own Mama," said Mary sharply. "It's Tuesday and she's not going. Period."

"Fine," said Sam, wondering why she'd called him in the first place. "Look, we're about to board – "

"I can't believe you talked me into this," continued Mary. "Sarah needs to step it up. She doesn't have a family like I do."

"Sarah's busy," said Sam, definitely not bringing up the fact that he and Sarah had carried the lion's share of Mama's care since her Alzheimer's had gotten so bad. He glanced across the gate. Clint was standing, holding his carry-on, watching him with sharp, inquiring eyes. "I gotta go, my plane's leaving," he said.

"And I am _not_ eating that processed crap in the fridge," Mary said. "I am going to the grocery store and getting our Mama some real food."

"Don't leave her at home by herself," said Sam, throat closing in panic.

"What do you think I am?" demanded Mary, angry. "You think I don't know that?"

"Just checking," said Sam. "Now, don't – "

"No, you go on, get," snapped Mary. "Going on vacation with your free-wheeling friends. You just have a good time and don't think about your Mama or how you're inconveniencing your sister at all." And she hung up.

Sam's jaw hurt from gritting his teeth. He shut off his phone, shouldered his bag, and plastered a smile over his guilt. He hoped Mama survived a week of her oldest daughter's attitude.

It was hard not to worry about how Mary was going to handle going grocery shopping with Mama. Mama walked so slowly, and had to stop and talk to everyone they met, and just when you'd unloaded the cart onto the conveyor belt at the register, she always had to visit the ladies' room _right now, I can't wait, Samuel._ It was easier to order her groceries online, but sometimes Sam just had to get out of the house.

The flight proceeded without incident, almost as though no one on the plane cared that Sam was farther away from his mother than he'd been in over a year, and he could feel the distance between them like a frayed string soaked in guilt and resentment. He practiced some deep-breathing exercises to loosen the knot in his chest, hoping Clint didn't notice, and managed to calm himself enough to appreciate the irony that their fellow passengers had no idea they were heading to the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport with two ex-Avengers, one of whom was a retired assassin.

Sam reluctantly turned his phone back on when Clint called his wife to let them know they'd arrived safely. "No, I don't think Nate's ready to try archery this year," Clint was saying as they headed out of the gate, suitcases trundling behind them. "But yeah, I'll tell Buck to go on ahead and send the tee-ball set. No, ma'am, we won't, I promise. Yeah, I'll send pictures. And send me a video of Lila kayaking. She's been looking forward to that for months."

Sam checked. Five new messages. He swallowed and tucked the phone back in his pocket. "Sure, we can do Disney this October. Steve and Buck want to take the kids to the Mickey Halloween thing. We can stay at that same resort so Buck and me can grab a couple games of golf."

It was so hard to not be envious.

Clint wound up the call, voice tender, and pocketed his phone. "Just you watch," he said to Sam cheerfully. "I'm gonna have to buy Lila a kayak for her birthday next month."

Sam couldn't remember how old Lila was supposed to be, but surely Clint would know whether or not this was a potential hazard. "Bet she'll like that," he said neutrally.

Really, it was incredible that no one else in the airport seemed to cotton on to the fact that Captain America and the Winter Soldier were waiting at Arrivals. Steve was blond and massive, and Bucky was, even smiling and waving, quite frankly terrifying. But people simply passed them by without a second glance, seeming insensate to the potential for patriotic violence the two represented. This might have had something to do with the "Kick Me" sign taped to Captain America's back, and the Dora the Explorer sticker over the Winter Soldier's red star.

Sam was pretty sure Clint noticed, but as he didn't say anything, Sam decided to stay mum. While Steve and Bucky wrangled their luggage into Steve's practical silver sedan, Sam leaned close to Clint's ear and murmured, "What's our play?"

Clint grinned. "Hold on to our hats," he whispered back. "And stay the fuck out of their way."

Sam heartily agreed. He was too tired not to.

 **XXXX**

"So here's the problem," said Bucky. He had found and dislodged the Dora sticker on his arm not long after Sam had helpfully peeled the "Kick Me" sign off Steve's back. "Mrs. Schumacher's kids are assholes."

He poured another round of tequila shots, the bright gold liquid glinting in the mellow Florida afternoon. The air was heavy, redolent with cut grass and the faint, sulfurous smell of the sprinklers next door, and Sam's jeans felt heavy and damp on his skin. He was looking forward to putting on a bathing suit and reacquainting himself with the Palacios Del Mar pool and clubhouse later.

Clint said, "That's the only problem? Hell, I can take care of that in five minutes. Where's my bow?"

"Now, that's tempting," grinned Bucky, downing a shot. "Nah, what I meant was, one of her grandkids sucked a bunch of money out of her pension, and now she's broke, and the kids, they don't pay any attention to her or what she needs."

"Her own grandchild stole her money?" exclaimed Sam, clenching his fists angrily. "Her own _grandchild?_ "

"That's right," said Steve. "Moved in to 'help her grandmother out.'" He looked grim. "Ended up helping herself." He downed his tequila and rose. The grill was smoking, the delectable scent of steaks wafting over the back patios mingling with citrus and wet asphalt. A fragrant cloud enveloped him when he opened the lid and poked experimentally at the steaks. "And her father, who is Mrs. Schumacher's eldest son, hasn't done a damn thing."

"Neither has her daughter," Bucky reminded him, lightly spinning his empty shot glass on a metal finger. "Livin' fat an' happy down in Palm Beach, she could spare some rubles for her ol' Ma. But does she? Nope." Bucky expertly flipped the shot glass in the air, caught it one-handed, and picked up the bottle of añejo with the other hand. It flashed in the late afternoon, golden like the westward sun. "Too busy on that goddamn yacht."

"Her own family, stealing her retirement money?" Sam said, incredulous. Maybe Mary wasn't so bad after all.

"It's not an uncommon problem," explained Steve. "Lots of older people get confused, trust the wrong person, and end up getting bilked."

"But her own _granddaughter?"_ Sam protested. As much as Mary's middle child irritated him, he couldn't imagine Tyree stealing from his grandma.

"'Fraid so," said Steve. "Drained her pension. Poor Mrs. Schumacher's as poor as a church mouse now. And to hear her tell it, her late husband left her pretty well off."

"So here the poor dear is," said Bucky indignantly, pouring more tequila, "leaks in the kitchen, leaks in the Florida room, leaks in the goddamn bedroom over her fuckin' bed, puttin' mop buckets and bowls down to try to catch all the water, and will her kids help her out? Of course not. Fuckin' pricks."

"You been on her roof yet?" asked Clint casually.

"Sure," said Bucky. "Missing shingles and stuff. I pulled up a couple of the worst looking ones, and you can see right through the roof past the wood into her little atticky area, what's it called." He waved his hands vaguely, the silver glinting. "You know. In all that pink shit, whattayacallit."

"Insulation," said Clint.

"Yeah, that stuff, got the Pink Panther ads, right?" Bucky got up, looked at them blankly, and then for no apparent reason meandered through Steve's sliding glass doors into the kitchen. Sam supposed that was normal. Steve did complain a lot about Bucky wandering off sometimes. Clint turned to Steve.

"How much we got to work with?" he asked.

"We had a bake sale at the clubhouse and raised almost three thousand dollars," said Steve. "Bucky and I will supplement the balance. We just won't tell her what the bottom line is."

"Is she that vague?" asked Sam worriedly, thinking of all the things he could no longer tell Mama. "Should she even be living alone?"

Steve shrugged. "I suppose. Mrs. Sandoval across the street is worse. I don't really have a way to measure how senile a person gets. Once they get to the point here that they can't take care of their own homes, they usually move into an assisted care facility, or back in with their families." He smiled a little sadly. "We have a pretty high turnover rate at Palacios Del Mar."

Sam stared at his shot glass and said nothing. Clint glanced at him, then said, "Well, first thing tomorrow morning, we'll get up on the old lady's roof and I'll take a look. I've replaced our roof before. It's not rocket science, just need the right equipment and some strong backs. Where's the closest lumber place?"

Bucky drifted back out onto the patio. "Hey, does anyone want a beer?" he asked hopefully.

"Tequila's not enough?" grinned Clint.

"Well, it is if you're awesome," retorted Bucky.

"While you're digging around in my refrigerator, bring out the potato salad," said Steve as Bucky went back in. "And silverware!" he called to Bucky's retreating back, shaking his head at Bucky's middle finger in response.

"Lumber," said Clint, knocking back a shot.

"I've got an account at the place around the corner," said Steve, flipping the steaks. "Pretty sure we can get what we need there. It's popular with local contractors."

"We got a truck?" asked Clint mildly.

"Bucky says we can borrow one of his friend's," said Steve a little dubiously. "It's, uh … well, it runs. Most of the time."

"'Most of the time'?" Sam parroted uneasily.

"Eh," said Clint, pouring himself more tequila. "Bucky's good with cars. We'll be fine."

"Oh, he's _great_ with cars," said Sam. "Especially the steering columns. I tell ya."

Clint snorted with laughter, and Steve shook his head with a smile. "Jesus, Sam," he said fondly.

Sam's phone trilled. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked it. "Shit," he muttered. Mary again. "Hold on, I gotta get this."

Steve looked surprised, but nodded. Clint only said, "Sure, man," and gave him a wary look. Sam shoved his concern over social convention into a dark corner in his mind and got to his feet.

He stepped off Steve's patio and crossed through the chainlink gate to Bucky's yard. It was shady and private there, and smelled pungent, orange blossom and sugar cane and citronella. It felt odd to take shelter in the Winter Soldier's refuge, but he needed privacy.

 **MARY: Mama wants to make a sweet potato pie she can't can she**

 **ME: Sure she can, just stay in the kitchen with her and watch her to make sure she doesn't burn it**

 **MARY: If she can't make it start to finish why we letting her make one at all that makes no sense Samuel**

 **ME: It makes her happy. Let her feed you.**

 **MARY: And what up with this fat white lady, can't we get a better night nurse? come on Samuel**

 **ME: We been through five night nurses in five months, come on Mary, give her a break, she's a good nurse**

 **MARY: Well you best not stay gone long I got a job and a man and kids you know I can't wait hand and foot on Mama like you can youre retired**

 **ME: You don't have to wait on her. That's why we have the nurse. And she likes to watch Judge Judy. I DVRd a bunch of episodes. Just play a few, she won't know if you play one more than one time.**

 **MARY: I won't watch judge judy that show annoys me we going to watch my shows and Mama can put up with it**

 **MARY: If she doesn't know the difference watching jj a bunch of times she can watch my shows, she won't know**

 **ME: She likes Judge Judy, come on Mary, it's only a few days, suck it up buttercup**

 **MARY: oh no you don't suck it up to me Samuel you are retired you got no wife and kids I am putting aside my own family to stay here so you can slum with those slacker so called super hero friends of yours don't you tell me to watch judge judy**

Sam took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. He was not going to let Mary get to him. Not this week, not now. He had been watching over Mama for a year now, with only a couple of breaks from Sarah when she could drive down from New York. Replacing a roof in a retirement community with two ex-assassins, one of whom had wrecked his flight suit, destroyed his car, and tried to shoot him, was not how he had planned to spend what little time off he could take. But it was his time off, dammit, and he was going to spend it here, with Steve and Clint and even Bucky, whether she approved of his friends or not.

 **ME: Gimme a break Mary, she's our mother**

A pause; Sam knew his older sister well enough to not be optimistic.

 **MARY: DON'T YOU DARE SAMUEL I KNOW SHES OUR MAMA DON'T YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT IT BREAKS MY HEART TO SEE HER THIS WAY BUT YOU GOT NO RIGHT TO TELL ME HOW TO CARE FOR MY MAMA SHE IS MY MAMA TOO AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF HER HOW I SEE FIT SAMUEL**

Sam didn't respond. He turned his phone off and slipped it back in his pocket. His stomach felt cold and heavy, and he recognized it as guilt, fear, and anger. Knowing what his emotional response meant from a psychological point of view did not make it any more comfortable.

He trailed slowly through Bucky's overgrown yard back toward Steve's neat green square. The steaks smelled heavenly, and he could hear Steve and Clint talking and laughing, easily, like old friends do. Sam felt very out of place, very young, very black, very not an Avenger, very burdened with grief and weariness, which was a very far cry from glorious purpose of any sort. He paused by the chainlink gate and turned his face toward one of the fruit trees, its boughs heavy with dark purple blooms. He inhaled; the scent was spicy and exotic, nothing like the smell of urine and Ben Gay and Lysol.

He put his hand on the gate to open it, then jerked back when he heard Steve roar: "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" Adrenaline spiked across his back, not even abating when Clint burst out laughing, holding his stomach and pointing at two super soldiers chasing each other in and out of the house.

"What happened?" demanded Sam, angrily because he was startled.

Clint was still whooping. "Bucky – " he gasped. "Replaced –Steve's mayo – with vanilla pudding!" He pounded the glass top table with glee. Sam could hear banging and crashing from Steve's side of the duplex, Bucky cackling and Steve cursing. "The potato salad – it's vanilla pudding – " Clint shook his head, still giggling, and wiped his eyes. "Oh my god, Wilson, the look on Cap's face when he took a bite!"

Sam sighed and allowed himself a smile. He sat down, willing his heartbeat to slow. No skirmish, no gunfire, just two assholes having a prank war. Just Sam's luck.

He and Clint rescued the steaks from incineration and found a bag of potato chips. Steve and Bucky emerged, Bucky sporting a fading Indian burn, grinning and unrepentant. "Fuckin' hate potato salad," he declared, ripping open the chips and grabbing a handful. He shoved them into his mouth and chewed aggressively at Steve, who was still breathing heavily through his nostrils at him, golden hair mussed.

"You," said Steve through gritted teeth, "will pay for that."

"Oh yeah, Mr. Kick Me?" demanded Bucky.

"Yeah," said Steve with a tight grin. "Mr. Dora the Explorer."

Sam couldn't help but smile. At least this week would be nothing like his daily routine. And he was pretty sure watching two super soldiers in the midst of a prank war would be way more entertaining than Judge Judy. He refilled his shot glass, and Clint's too when he held it out with a sideways grin. He would have a good vacation if it killed him.


	3. Chapter 3

_(A/N: It's not_ _necessary_ _to read "Murray Schumacher" before this chapter, but it might explain a few things if you haven't yet. Also, Murray is based on my rescue mutt Priestly, though Murray is far better behaved. – Le Rouret)_

 **3.**

Steve's guest room was completely taken up by two easels, stacks of canvasses, boxes of paint, and rolling containers of sketch pads, notebooks, pencils, conté, and pastels. Sam was happy to sleep on the sofa in the living room, despite Bucky's assertions it was the hardest and most uncomfortable mattress in the county. This suited Sam fine. He preferred a hard bed, and the vaulted ceiling of Steve's living room was awash with the soft blue-grey colors of a Florida night, swaying shadows mocking the breeze-tossed branches outside.

He fielded twelve text messages and one whispered phone call from Mary concerning Mama's incontinence and Sundowner's. Mary was convinced Mama had peed in the kitchen trash can on purpose to make her angry. Sam spent forty-five minutes trying to convince Mary that Mama rarely did anything with malice aforethought, or with any aforethought at all. Mary was not convinced, and Sam had a couple of sleepless hours worrying that Mary would try to punish Mama somehow, despite the fact he knew his sister wouldn't do anything so petty. But he knew – how well he knew! – that it was so easy to lose one's temper dealing with what was essentially a one hundred fifty pound toddler with the seeming bladder capacity of a small elephant.

He drifted in and out of sleep, registering the sleepy tick of Steve's antique mantle clock and the light fingernail-scrape of tree branches against the big oriel window at the peak of the vaulted living room ceiling as his consciousness ebbed and surged. He lay bemused for about an hour, fighting back the persistent memory of his filial obligations in the attempt to reclaim rest, but was only half-successful. He had finally drifted off, feeling thick and floaty, embraced by the cerulean dimness and soft luff of the fan's blades on his skin, when his eyelids flickered and parted, and revealed a dark figure looming threateningly over him.

He jolted awake, hands scrabbling against the soft sheets as he pushed himself back against the couch cushions. The figure, eyes gleaming through a tumble-down nest of hair, jerked back, hands upraised. Sam saw the glint of light on the metal palm and let his breath out in a hiss.

"What the hell, man?" he demanded, keeping his voice low, but showing the Winter Solder his empty hands.

Bucky didn't say anything, just shook his head, his palms to Sam, and stepped back.

"What the hell are you doing?" hissed Sam. "What do you want? Trying to kill me again?"

"No," protested Bucky, his voice thick and soft. "No, no, no. I just." There was the _glop_ of someone swallowing heavily. "Just. You know. You – making sure you're sleeping."

"Not anymore, I'm not," snapped Sam. His heart tripped like a trio of girls playing jumprope and his forehead felt tight. "What the hell?" He glanced at the mantle clock; it read six AM. "Jesus Christ."

"I didn't – " Bucky hesitated, then turned away, running his hands, one flesh and one metal, through is hair. "Sorry," he muttered. "I just, you know."

"No, I don't," said Sam. He rubbed his eyes. They were gritty and hot. He knew his fear was making him angry, but what the hell was this insane man doing, hovering over a guy while he slept? "Don't _do_ that, man!"

"I'm sorry," said Bucky again. Sam's irritation peaked.

"And quit saying you're sorry," he snapped. "Waking me up like that. This isn't even your house!"

"Sam?" A soft step from the hallway; Steve's bulk showed, a darker blob against the darkness. "Everything okay?" His voice was cautious, braced for the worst.

Guilt again; god, would Sam never be rid of it? "No, we're good," he said quickly, over Bucky's hesitant dither. "Just startled, that's all." He glared up at Bucky, who flushed and looked away. To be fair, he really did look sorry, and Sam felt even worse. "Hungry," he added, hoping to change the subject.

"Oh, okay." Steve sounded relieved, and Bucky ducked quickly into the kitchen, walking on cat-feet so quiet Sam couldn't hear him. Why was this guy so damn creepy? Sam reminded himself, for perhaps the ten thousandth time, that it wasn't Bucky's fault, but that didn't take the scary factor away. The Winter Soldier was unnerving, full-stop, even when drinking tequila and playing pranks on Captain Freaking America.

Sam pulled himself into a sitting position, back aching and head spinning. God, he must be getting old. He rubbed his eyes again and tried to quiet the quick trip of his heart.

Steve strode into the room, all broad shoulders and bare chest and big feet. Dammit, no wonder Sam's sister Sarah called him White Chocolate. "Hey, Buck," he called into the kitchen. "Make us some coffee if you're gonna break into my house."

"Sir yes sir," came the sarcastic response, and soon after Sam heard the slurp and clank of Steve's antique percolator. Steve propped himself up on the media cabinet and smirked down at Sam with an unreadable look in his blue eyes.

"Sleep well?" he asked. Sam wasn't sure if there was another question he was trying to ask, but he was too tired to parse Steve's diplomatic instincts.

"Fine," he said quickly. "Until your pal Bucky woke me up."

"I _said_ I was sorry," came a grumble from the kitchen, and Sam felt bad again.

"Always tough, sleeping in a new place the first night," he added. "I'm fine. Just need some coffee, that's all."

"Me too," growled a husky voice from the door. Clint appeared, silent, lethal, his fair hair in cowlicks and knots, scowling. "Is it just me, Wilson, or are these two goddamn super soldiers trying to rob us of a decent couple hours sleep?"

"We don't need as much sleep as you do," said Steve mildly. "Not our fault."

"Yeah, fuck you both," said Clint, and split his head open in a huge yawn. Sam yawned too, in sympathy, and swung his legs around the side of the pull-out. The stone tile felt cool and smooth beneath his bare feet.

"Excuse me," he said shortly, and padded to the guest bathroom.

When he resurfaced, face washed and teeth brushed and only a modicum less irritable, Steve and Clint were sitting together on the barstools at the kitchen-dinette divider, ceramic mugs in hand. They were speaking quietly together, like old friends do, and Bucky was rustling around Steve's kitchen, pulling milk and eggs out of the fridge and clattering pans on the stove top. Sam forced himself to relax. Sure, he could've used another couple hours of sleep, but the coffee smelled good, the breeze blowing in through the sliding glass door was moist and rich with bloom and birdsong, and a cursory glance at his phone revealed Mary hadn't texted him yet.

"You like French toast?" asked Bucky, glancing warily at him.

"Yeah," said Sam, deciding it was more politic to be polite than otherwise. Besides, he reminded himself again, it was _not_ Bucky's fault.

At least, not most of it.

A wave of envy washed through Sam. Bucky had no family to worry about, no responsibilities or concerns beyond his own skin and soul. He could afford to be involved with his neighbors, stay up all night playing video games, and ransack Steve's kitchen, because there was no hold on him, no obligation to be a son or a brother or a responsible citizen.

Sam sat heavily on one of Steve's barstools, the familiar twisting ache of worry taking his rest away from him. He knew things were bad when he started being jealous of a brainwashed former POW.

 **XXXXX**

Bucky put blue food dye in Steve's coffee, turning Steve's teeth, tongue, and lips deep indigo. Clint told Sam, while Steve was busy chasing Bucky around the duplex yelling at him, that this was in retaliation for what Steve had done to Bucky's home-grown orange juice. Apparently powdered cheese mix stirred into the fresh-squeezed juice was indistinguishable from orange pulp.

Sam's shower was interrupted by a horrible banging and clattering, punctuated by Bucky's yells of "YOU ASSHOLE!" and Steve's laughter. He didn't even want to know. It was going to be a long week.

Mrs. Schumacher's house was only a block and a half away, but Clint had brought a toolbox so large and extensive it made Sam think of his own kit with the despair a Shetland pony breeder might feel when confronted by a herd of Clydesdales. They loaded it into Bucky's car and headed over.

Sam tried not to be too envious of the '69 Barracuda. It was beautiful, all polished chrome and supple leather. He thought resentfully of his poor, steering wheel-deprived sedan. Life wasn't fair.

They got out in front of a little pink house on a corner lot. Sam wasn't an expert carpenter, but even he could tell the roof needed work. Parts of it were covered with neat blue squares of tarp, carefully nailed down.

While Bucky and Clint started hauling Clint's tools up the driveway, Sam touched Steve's arm and asked, "You put the tarp up?"

"No, that was Bucky," admitted Steve. He had brushed his teeth seven times, but there was still a tinge of blue around his mouth.

"Huh." Sam nodded slowly. "Very neat."

"He can be, when he puts his mind to it," said Steve.

"Hey," said Sam, suddenly inspired. "You ought to put a dead fish under his car seat." At Steve's surprised look, he added, "You know. Since you prankin' each other and all that."

"Vehicles are off-limits," said Steve primly.

Now it was Sam's turn to look surprised. "You got rules?" he said.

"Well, yeah," said Steve. "We'd've burned down Brooklyn by 1936 if we didn't." He grinned and walked up the drive.

A very tiny, very frail pink-clad lady with coffee-colored skin and hair like steel wool was tottering down the driveway, smiling broadly. Sam nearly dropped his tool box when Bucky sprinted up to her, arms wide, and took her tenderly into a gentle hug. His metal arm flashed in the morning sun, protectively cradling and not murderous in the slightest. Sam still wasn't used to that.

"Doctor Barnes!" the little old lady crooned, kissing the Winter Soldier's freshly-shaved cheek. So _that_ was why he'd been so careful with his morning toilet, flipping Steve off when he'd teased him. "So lovely to see you this morning."

"Mrs. Schumacher," beamed Bucky. Sam could hear a small dog yapping furiously in the low pink bungalow. The stucco had been freshly pressure washed, and the sleek old Lincoln in the car port had a new paint job and chrome bumpers. Her lawn was crisply mowed and edged, and big, colorful hibiscus bushes flourished beneath the front bay window. "You remember Clint?"

"Of course," smiled the little lady. "How nice! How are your wife and children? Everyone well?"

"All at summer camp, ma'am," said Clint heartily, shaking her hand as though it was made of papier-mâché. "Gonna be jealous as hell I got down here without them."

"Well, you'll just have to bring them down for a visit as soon as possible," she said. "Mr. Rogers, handsome as ever."

"Mrs. Schumacher," grinned Steve, submitting to her genteel kiss. "May I introduce my good friend, Sam Wilson? He's come down from Washington, DC to help us with your roof."

The dog in the house was working its way up to an apoplectic frenzy, and Sam could hear it banging and scraping against the screen door. He hoped it shut up soon. He had a very low tolerance for yappy dogs. Probably a Pomeranian or one of those stupid rat terriers like his sister had. But he stepped gamely forward, putting on his Charming Grin, the one Sarah always laughed at him about, claiming it was only good for old ladies and turnstile guards, not single ladies like her and her trendy friends. But Mrs. Schumacher took his proffered hand in her own dry, thin one, and stared up at him, her black eyes bewildered.

"My roof?" she said, confused.

"Yeah, we're fixin' your roof today, Mrs. S," said Bucky, bouncing up to her front door. "Remember? Keeps leakin'."

"Oh, is that _today_?" fussed Mrs. Schumacher. Her tiny claw slid limply out of Sam's. "I'm so sorry, gentlemen, I didn't remember. I do hope I don't need to _do_ anything? I'm afraid I haven't made enough iced tea for all of you."

"I brought us plenty to drink," Bucky assured her, and opened the door of the house to release the noisy beast within.

A small, oddly-shaped dog bolted out of the door and made several frenetic figure eights around Clint and Sam, yapping excitedly. "Murray!" exclaimed Mrs. Schumacher. "Behave yourself, young man!"

"Here, boy!" called Bucky, and whistled. The little dog made a beeline for him, and leaped effortlessly into his arms, little black toenails scraping on the metal. Sam thought he looked like a terrier that God had gotten tired of building halfway through, and finished with a random assortment of other dog parts. His ears and the top of his overlong, two-toned tail were black, but the rest of him was a mottled and disarranged fawn, with wiry pale hair hanging over his eyes, and making a mustache and goatee worthy of Colonel Sanders on the blunt snout. But he licked Bucky's face with enthusiasm, and hopped down when bidden, sitting obediently next to the Lincoln with a small pink tongue sticking out of that ridiculous mouth.

"We've brought everything we need, Mrs. Schumacher," Steve assured the little old lady. "Food, drink, and tools. We're going to let Clint up on the roof to figure out what we need, then go to the hardware store and pick up your shingles for you."

She stared up at him, worried. "Can I _afford_ all of that?" she asked, looking embarrassed. "It sounds terribly _expensive._ And I don't have _nearly_ as much wherewithal as I used to, you know." She gave Sam an apologetic look. "My late husband Murray – not the dog – he was so good with money, you see, but the past few years –"

Sam was spared answering this awkward exchange by Bucky interrupting, "Don't worry, Mrs. S, we got you covered. And oh, look!" he exclaimed over the little old lady's surprised protests. "Here comes Sabra Fetterman from down the street. Aren't you two going to the arts and crafts thingy up at the clubhouse today?"

"Am I?" she asked, bewildered, but turned in the direction of his pointed finger, metal glinting in the morning sunlight. Sam beheld a stout, beaming woman with starkly dyed black hair and sensible shoes stepping briskly up the driveway. Murray yapped excitedly and wriggled at her feet, and she bent over with a grunt to ruffle the wiry hair on the top of his head.

"Hello, you scrappy boy," she said cheerfully, and grinned at Mrs. Schumacher, who came forward to greet her very properly with a kiss. "Good morning, Bunny! You ready to wrestle in prayer with rick-rack and Elmer's glue today? I hear Opal McTavish is kicking up a fuss about the bikini-bottom cookies we made last time and has decided to boycott, so we should have a good time this morning."

"Opal is certainly offended by many things," said Mrs. Schumacher worriedly. "Perhaps she is unduly influenced by her husband. He's such a snorty and ill-tempered fellow, isn't he, Sabra? That can have such a _deleterious_ effect on a wife's emotional constitution, can't it? I often wonder if maybe it would be better for them if they spent maybe a _little_ less time at church and a _little_ more time at the clubhouse bar. Though it doesn't do to say so in public." She cast a scandalized look around Steve, Bucky, and Sam, and her brightly-painted pink lips quirked into a sly smile. "Promise not to tell?" she chirped, a shadow of the minxish gamin she must've been in her youth crossing her face. Sam suddenly liked her very much.

"Our lips are sealed," Steve promised with a grin.

Mrs. Schumacher was abruptly transfixed by Steve's teeth. She blinked, then said hopefully, "You know, in days gone by, it was very common for young Japanese women to black their teeth to show that they were marriageable material."

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Bucky's hoot of laughter. "Now, look here," said Sabra Fetterman, marching up to Steve and pulling him, chin first, down to her level. It was a long way down, but that didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. She fixed Steve with a baleful eye. "Let's see, now."

"It's Bucky's fault," Steve grumbled, but let Sabra inspect his teeth and lips, still indigo.

"Charcoal," said Sabra. She glanced over at Bucky, who grinned unapologetically. "You _kochleffel_ , you."  
"He put a clear candy in my shower head this morning," complained Bucky.

"You put olives in my cherry jam!" exclaimed Steve, offended.

"Yeah, well you – "

"Tsk!" Mrs. Schumacher toddled up her driveway. "Just you let me get my pocketbook, Sabra, and we can leave these gentlemen to their work. Honestly, Dr. Barnes," she said to Bucky, who was trying his best to look injured. "Such behavior! Not fitting a _professional man,_ you know."

"Though the olives were a nice touch," said Sabra complacently. Bucky gave Steve, who looked offended, a smug look.

Mrs. Schumacher was distracted by a thump on her roof. Clint had shinned up the drainpipe and was poking around the shingles with a crowbar. "Oh, goodness gracious me!" she exclaimed. "Do be careful, Mr. Barton!"

"Now don't you worry about Clint," said Bucky complacently, patting her hand. "He doesn't fall off of anything."

This didn't appear to comfort her. "Oh, Sabra," she exclaimed, plucking the other woman's sleeve nervously. "What if one of them DOES fall off? Am I legally responsible for their medical bills? I don't know how much medical bills really ARE anymore these days, as I'm on Medicare and things just seem to be so EXPENSIVE, and – "

"Mrs. S.," said Bucky, putting his terrifying metal arm gently around the little old lady's shoulder. His pale eyes were soft and kind, and Sam suddenly wondered about Bucky's mother. The pang of guilt surprised him, and he touched the square of his cell phone in his pocket. "Don't you worry about us, okay? We'll be fine. And you haven't hired us, so you aren't responsible for any stupid things we do when we're up on your roof. Right, Stevie?"

"Right," said Steve. "Don't worry, ma'am, we've got this covered."

"You lazy shits done talking fiscal liability?" called Clint, flipping the crowbar negligently in his hand. "Because I'm ready to put together a shopping list now."

"That was quick," said Steve mildly.

"Well, ain't my first rodeo," said Clint, and sprang effortlessly off the edge of Mrs. Schumacher's roof, executed a perfect midair flip, and landed square on his booted feet on the lawn. Mrs. Schumacher gave a squeak of surprise, and Sabra chuckled and clapped a few times.

"Very impressive, young man," she said. "Now, Bunny, let's get up to the clubhouse before all the good rick rack is taken and Mrs. Sandoval spills the glue again. Amelie and Ellie are saving us seats."

"Well, if you're sure everything will be all right," said Mrs. Schumacher, looking with achingly trusting eyes at Bucky. He scooped up her little hand and gave it a genteel kiss.

"Trust me, Mrs. S," he said. "We got this. You and Sabra have fun."

"Well, all right," she said. "Here, Murray! Here, boy!"

The weird little terrier sprang to his feet and flew over to her, bicolored tail wagging furiously. She clipped a lead on his collar, and gathered the men's attention with her dark eyes, smiling. "Thank you boys so much," she said. "You're all so kind to me."

"Ma'am," said Clint gallantly, bowing over her hand. "It is my pleasure."

"Mine, too," said Sam. He liked this tiny woman with her strange little dog, though it was probably indicative of imminent dementia she seemed so trusting of Bucky Barnes.

She fixed him suddenly with a sharp eye, then said slowly: "You know, you look very much like my second cousin's grandson. Such a handsome young man." She narrowed her eyes. "Are you married, Sam?"

"Not yet," he said gamely.

"Hm!" She gave Sabra an arch look. "Time to call the yenta, Sabra."

Sam, who didn't know what a yenta was, frowned at Bucky and Steve's barks of laughter, and Clint's chuckle. "Time enough for that, Bunny," Sabra only said, voice thick with humor, and led Bunny and her little dog away.

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

The day passed in a blur of activity, comforting for Sam because it was so distinctly masculine and out-of-doors. Hot sun, woody breeze, the bite of bottled sweet tea and Publix sandwiches, rough leather gloves protecting his hands from the two-by-fours and pallets of shingle loading and unloading from Bucky's friend's old pickup truck. His unease melted away with the back-and-forth insults and dirty jokes, and even Bucky's attitude seemed to lighten and change, singing snatches of song as they trooped through the hardware store and dancing to Kool and the Gang while waiting for their lunch. Sam neglected his phone for a while, muted and silent in the console of Bucky's Barracuda, and it was easy to forget how far away Mama was, and to tell himself that Mary loved their mother and would take good care of her in his absence.

At last, they cast blue tarps over the supplies as the light faded, Clint marking out in wax pencil on an old yellow tablet what their schedule for the next day should be. "And let's pray it doesn't rain," he said, shaking the pencil at Steve, Sam, and Bucky. "Need to get this done in one shot, or we fuck up her attic."

"And if it does rain?" asked Steve, ever the tactician.

"Then we go fishing, and do it the next day," said Clint firmly. "No tearing anything down without being able to put it back together again."

Sam was reminded, ridiculously, of his mother's guest bath toilet, and hoped it was working well. This put him in mind of his phone, black and silent in Bucky's car, and anxiety stabbed through him. Was Mama okay? Was Mary taking good care of her? Had anything happened? Had she wet herself, or had diarrhea, or locked herself in the bedroom, or burned up another tea kettle? But then Sabra brought Mrs. Schumacher home, with Murray trailing happily behind, stuffed full of ladyfingers and shortbread. Mrs. Schumacher gushed thanks to them as the evening glowed, Florida clouds piled high like cotton candy in the mellow sky, thin dark fingers pressing papier-mâché vases with bright rick-rack and glitter, the smell of tacky Elmer's glue over Sabra's comfortable chuckle.

"We'll see you boys tomorrow," said Sabra, kissing Mrs. Schumacher on the cheek, and then Bucky, and Steve, and Clint, and even Sam, who warranted a pat on the arm. "Don't worry about the yenta," she whispered, dark eyes twinkling. "Chances are, Bunny will have forgotten all about it by tomorrow morning."

Sam smiled, but as they piled in Bucky's car to head back to the duplex, Sam was struck by a horrible thought: _What if Mama forgot him while he was gone?_ It wasn't outside the bounds of possibility – she had already forgotten all of her grandchildren's names, and half the time couldn't tell Sarah from Mary, even though Mary had eight years and fifty pounds on her younger sister.

What if Mama forgot him in the seven days he was supposed to be gone?

What if she had already forgotten him?

What would Mama say when he walked in her door next week? Would it be, "Oh, Samuel, it's been such a long time!" like she always said, even if it had only been ten minutes? Or would she bellow, "WHO ARE YOU?" like she had at Tyree last month when he'd come to show her his football trophy?

What if Mama forgot him?

Sam clamped down on his emotions, hard. Mama would forget him eventually anyway. It was best to be prepared for that. Alzheimer's was a terrible, irreversible disease, and ate away at the victim's memory with inexorable and haphazard cruelty. It would not happen all at once; it would etch away gradually, Samuel's name harder to recall, replaced by his father's, and then ultimately, unavoidably, darkness and confusion.

Sam ate his Thai food and drank his beer and plastered on a smile, letting the masculine jocularity carry him for a few hours, but he had seen the twenty-seven new text messages from his sister waiting for him. He slipped away while Bucky and Clint set up a new game of Tank Commander for them to play, ducking around the corner of Bucky's disheveled living room where Steve sat on Bucky's horrible pink couch. He took a deep breath, counted to twenty, and let it out in a slow, relaxing whoosh. Thus braced, he read Mary's texts.

 **MARY: She got me up at four a m! why wont she sleep**

 **MARY: she peed all over the bathroom floor, we need better diapers**

 **MARY: she won't eat what I made her for breakfast. Thought she liked cream of wheat, what happened?**

 **MARY: why you haven't bought more dry goods, this pantry bare af**

 **MARY: SAMUEL WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER ME**

 **MARY: we are out of clean sheets and towels already, why don't she have more of them? Also washing them I still smell pee! How do we get pee out of her things?**

 **MARY: she asking the SAME questions over and over and OVER Samuel how do you get her to shut up?**

 **MARY: ANSWER ME SAMUEL**

 **MARY: WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE THINKS DADDY IS STILL ALIVE WHY HAVEN'T YOU TOLD HER**

 **MARY: THIS IS NOT FAIR TO HER SHE THINKS DADDY IS ALIVE AND WHEN I TOLD HER HE PASSED SHE CRIED AND CRIED**

 **MARY: SAMUEL WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER ME**

 **MARY: YOU CANNOT BE THAT BUSY**

 **MARY: took two hours to grocery shop oh my god Samuel no wonder you order in**

 **MARY: She forgot Daddy's dead AGAIN**

 **MARY: SAMUEL PICK UP THE PHONE**

 **MARY: I MEAN IT SAMUEL I AIN'T PLAYING WITH YOU I CAN'T DO THIS**

 **MARY: Ok think we got this she taking a nap and I'm gonna fix her favorite chicken for dinner**

 **MARY: OH MY GOD I FORGOT EGGS**

 **MARY: she keeps wetting herself, why doesn't she remember how to use a toilet? Is she doing this on purpose?**

 **MARY: she keeps telling me stories that I know are wrong but when I correct her she gets mad at me!**

 **MARY: why does she think Uncle Matthew lived down the street here when we all know he never lived nowhere but Rochester? And she won't listen to me Samuel why won't she LISTEN to me. and when I show her pictures of my children she thinks they're great uncle Macon's kids? She doesn't even remember them**

 **MARY: she just told me she and daddy married in a big ceremony with a white dress and a priest, you KNOW that's not right we got the pictures to prove it but I showed them to her and she said that was her sister Vida but we know Vida never married what is she TALKING about Samuel? I get she slips up and forgets but how can she remember things that never even happened, what is wrong with her? Is she lying to me?**

 **MARY: she just wet herself AGAIN I think she's doing this on purpose she is being so nasty to me right now Samuel she just screaming at me what do I do**

 **MARY: Samuel anser me**

 **MARY: samuel pick pu the phoen**

 **MARY: oh god shes alseep is ti always like this**

 **MARY: I can't do this, you best come home quick, soon as you done with that roof I want to see you on this doorstep, my husband and kids need me and I cannot do this Samuel, don't you be selfish and stay away all week, I need to get home**

Sam felt sick. He didn't want his Masaman or basil rolls or coconut chicken soup. He wanted to go home and get Mary off his back and take care of Mama.

He also kind of wanted to never go home and stay in Florida and live under a pier and busk for a living.

He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to deal with Mama. He didn't want to smell Lysol and pee and Old Lady. He didn't want to meet night nurse after night nurse after night nurse and change the pads on Mama's bed and in Mama's chair and watch episode after episode of Judge Judy. He wanted to sleep on Steve's couch and eat Bucky's French toast and let Clint tell him what to do.

But, of course, he couldn't.

"Everything okay?"

Sam jumped. Clint was leaning on the wall corner, etched from behind with the warm light from Bucky's impossibly ugly living room lamps, holding two sweating beers. His craggy face was creased into a frown, his pale eyes sharp and thoughtful. He offered Sam a bottle. It was one of Sam's favorite brands, and he wondered when Bucky had bought it – at Publix, maybe? He hadn't noticed.

"Thanks," said Sam, and grimaced at the sound of his voice, thick and low. He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Everything's fine."

Clint's eyes narrowed, then widened. He smiled.

"Good," he said, and turned back into the living room. He glanced at Sam, at his phone, and made an inquiring noise. Sam tucked his phone back into his pocket, and followed him. Steve and Bucky were on the deplorable sofa, cursing at each other, obviously in the middle of a Tank Commander firefight.

Sam took a swig of his beer. It was sharp and dry, and fizzed nicely down his throat, tamping the nausea down. He needed to call Mary. But he couldn't, not now. Not with the guys listening in. So he smiled, and listened to the tank battle escalate to epic proportions, and worried about Mama, and thought about how tired he was.

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

He spent an hour on the phone with Mary, softly whispered expostulations and apologies, exculpating Mama's temper and confusion and the lack of dry goods in the pantry, before hanging up and lying in bed for two hours, wondering if he should cut his trip short and just go home. Then the image of Mrs. Schumacher and her little dog popped into his head, the soft dry skin and wide, gamin smile. How much guilt could a man take?

Too much, apparently. Sam drifted off into a disturbed and unsatisfying sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

_(A/N: I am so, so sorry. As many of you have probably guessed, Sam's relationship with Mama is based on a real-life, current relationship. Well, my hiatus posting to this story is directly related to the deterioration of my parent's condition, and to the difficulty I've had using this story as therapy, as originally intended. The trouble with therapy is that it hurts sometimes, and right now, it hurts like hell._

 _Please rest assured Sheraiah and I will finish this story, and even go on to write more in the Sarasotaverse. We actually just got back from a trip to Sarasota … for "research." A lot of booze and hush puppies were consumed … for "research." All with you in mind. I promise.)_

 **4.**

Sam dreamed of Iraq.

He did that, sometimes, when he was undergoing stress. Knowing the reason didn't make the experience any easier. There were the dusty yellow fields, pock-marked with craters; there were the burning cities with their broken minarets, and there was Riley, falling from the sky, screaming Sam's name. And no matter how fast Sam went, how he banked and turned through the strafing fire, he never reached Riley in time. Never.

Something buzzed next to his ear and he twitched awake. His back ached and his head hurt, and he felt like he'd never get a full night's sleep again. He fumbled, eyes closed, for his phone and turned it off.

"Not gonna get that?"

Sam jolted upright. The sun was just peeping through Steve's blinds, mellow and gingery, and Clint Barton sat on Steve's marble-topped coffee table, sipping a cup of coffee out of an enormous SHIELD mug. His fair hair was mussed and he had bags under his eyes.

"No," said Sam, and cleared his throat; it was gravelly. "Ugh. Tequila, man."

"Yeah, no shit," agreed Clint. He pushed a steaming Disney World mug towards him. "Drink up. Beautiful day, gonna be busy." He rose silently and effortlessly to his feet, and Sam wondered if Clint was part super soldier, too.

A trip to Steve's guest bathroom later, Sam was sitting on one of the barstools between Clint and Bucky, watching Steve make pancakes. The former Captain America, sporting baggy plaid pajama pants and a tee shirt worn thin and fine, was stirring the batter in an enormous bowl, muscles bulging and rippling as though he was in the middle of a very serious workout. Maybe he was; Sam had no idea how thick he'd made the pancake batter, and couldn't remember, after only two cups of coffee, if Steve made thick puffy pancakes or thin crisp crêpes.

"You didn't add anything to the batter, did you?" asked Steve of Bucky, eyes narrowing. Bucky raised his eyebrows and sipped innocently at his coffee.

"Of course not," he said, dignified despite his cowlicky hair and baggy Pokémon shirt. "You know the rules."

Steve sniffed, obviously not placated. "Rules?" asked Sam.

"No collateral damage," explained Clint. "Any civilians getting caught in the crossfire is an immediate concession to two unanswered pranks."

"The things I missed, having sisters," said Sam dryly. Bucky peered in Sam's coffee, saw it was nearly empty, and jumped up to get the carafe. As he refilled Sam's and Clint's mugs, he leaned in and whispered:

"Don't use the butter pecan syrup – put Worcestershire sauce in it."

Clint hid his snort of laughter behind a cough.

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Sam cut himself shaving. Of course. His hands were tremulous from exhaustion, too much tequila, and too little caffeine, and all he wanted to do was to go to bed and sleep for a week. But he had promised to fix Mrs. Schumacher's roof, goddammit, and he was going to do it.

Mary had left a furious, tear-filled message claiming she couldn't do it anymore, they needed to get full-time help, what the hell was he thinking, leaving this way, he needed to come home RIGHT NOW SAMUEL, Mama had pooped herself and trailed it down the hallway and into the kitchen and guest bathroom and then got mad at her for cleaning it up. Sam's stomach roiled, even though he hadn't used the tainted syrup. Should he cut his trip short? Mary wanted him to, wanted him home immediately, octogenarian's roof and Sam's desperately needed vacation be damned.

He didn't know what to do.

Clint probably could fix Mrs. Schumacher's roof all on his own with Steve and Bucky's help – hell, faster without Steve and Bucky's help, for all Sam knew – and Sam was sure Clint wouldn't miss him at all if he left. Nice guy, sharp and a little too knowing, but marriage and children put a barrier between him and Sam that surpassed even age and race. What was Sam thinking, with his father's old tool belt and box and limited knowledge of construction? No one needed him here, but Mary and Mama needed him, needed him back. He should leave.

Then he remembered Steve's promise to him, that after the roof was finished they would take two days to do absolutely nothing except windsurf and swim and eat seafood. God, Sam needed a break, he needed it so badly he could taste the salt water and hush puppies. He didn't want to go back, not before resting at least a little. He deserved a break. Didn't he? Yes, he did. He most definitely deserved a break.

Toilet paper did nothing to stem the flow of blood, so Sam went in search of a cotton ball and a bandage. Steve frowned at the cut and said,

"My bathroom, medicine cabinet, third shelf, left side."

"Thanks, man," said Sam tiredly, and left Steve to finish washing up the breakfast dishes. In retaliation for the Worcestershire sauce, Steve had slipped some sharp seed called a sand spur on Bucky's barstool, and his startled yelp had been gratifying. Unfortunately, Bucky couldn't reach it himself, and Clint was absorbed in a solemn contemplation of Bucky's ass to pull it out.

God, those two. As if Sam wasn't tired enough.

He padded through Steve's neat and rather Spartan bedroom into his also neat and also rather Spartan bathroom, and opened the medicine cabinet. The light from the one tiny window didn't illuminate it quite enough, and Sam couldn't tell if that box was Band-Aids or the whitening strips Steve had purchased to bleach the blue dye off his teeth yesterday. He squinted, but his eyes, apparently, needed just as much sleep as the rest of him. Sam fumbled with the light switch. The first one would be a light, right? Or the fan? No, the middle one was the fan, and the third one was – oh, what the hell. Sam palmed the switch plate and pushed them all up.

The fan juddered to life, and in the sudden burst of incandescent bulbs, a glitter tornado engulfed him. He yelped, tried to shield his eyes, banged his head on the corner of the medicine cabinet door, yelped again, and coughed up gold sparkles.

"STEVE!" he bellowed, and coughed again. He couldn't see through the glitter, gold and silver and multi-colors flying like a demented crafty hurricane. "GODDAMMIT – BUCKY – "

He heard feet pounding through the house. He waved his arms, blinded and furious, groping for the switch, but made contact with the shower door instead, rapping his elbow smartly and seeing stars. He made another attempt to speak and choked on the dazzling whirlwind. Just as abruptly the fan cut off, and Sam blinked toward the door, seeing through his sparkling eyelashes Steve standing, righteous indignation sticking out of him like the sand spur he'd stuck to Bucky's butt, and Bucky, eyes and mouth wide with stunned horror.

"You okay?" Clint grunted, pushing past the two super soldiers and wetting a face cloth. "Close your eyes and breathe through your nose."

Sam tried to suppress a cough. Glitter flew out of his nostrils. He felt a warm wet cloth wipe his face, Clint's rough hand steady on his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he said, coughed up glitter again, and snatched the face cloth away. Clint released him and stepped back. Sam managed to open his eyes, seeing the phosphine sparkle all over the bathroom, Steve glaring down at Bucky with a frightening smile on his face.

"Oh, buddy," he said in a low voice. "You are going to _get it._ " He grinned tightly at Sam, as though his best friend had done him a service by nearly choking a guest to death.

Bucky's mouth moved silently; it almost looked like _I'm sorry_ but Sam didn't care. "Fuck you two!" he burst, flinging the sparkling face cloth wetly in the sink. "Fuck your stupid-ass prank war! What the hell!" He pushed past them; they backed away, startled. "Get out of my way!" he shouted, and bolted for the guest bathroom. "Haven't you guys had enough? Are you even _grown?_ Jesus Christ!"

He felt his way into the guest room, stumbled past the art supplies, and slammed the bathroom door shut behind him. He turned on the shower, stripped out of his glittering clothes, and stood beneath the hot spray, trying to regulate his breathing. It was okay. He should not freak out. Or lose his temper. It was just a prank war gone wrong. Steve would get Bucky back. _Twice._

This ought to have made Sam feel better, but it didn't. The look of shocked dismay on the Winter Soldier's face, the mouthed _I'm sorry_ made Sam hope Steve didn't follow through with his threat. It wasn't Bucky's fault that Sam had glitter scratching up his ears and eyelids; and anyway, if that had happened to Steve, Sam most certainly would have laughed. The mental image of Captain Sparkly America popped unbidden into Sam's head, and he suppressed a chuckle. Yeah. He'd have laughed.

He stood under the spray for a good five minutes longer than he needed to, trying to convince himself he had not overreacted and the guys would not think he was being some kind of petulant diva. He knew they were out there, Bucky probably cleaning up Steve's glitter-bombed bathroom and bracing himself for whatever retaliation Steve thought worthy, Steve doing the breakfast dishes, Clint doing – whatever Clint did – what did a married father of three think of all this? Sam had no idea what Clint's kids were like, but reflected they must be a handful if he considered a week with Steve and Bucky more relaxing than staying at home by himself.

Or maybe Clint liked chaos. Sam knew a lot of people like that. Sarah, for example, which explained her dating life.

Sam did not like chaos. He liked order. He liked things neat, tidy, wrapped up, in their places. He liked being able to open his fridge and see the orange juice exactly where he'd left it the day before. He liked making his bed quarter-bounce tight and having it stay quarter-bounce tight all day until he slid into it at night. He liked being able to arrange the app icons on his phone in alphabetical order and open and answer every single one of his text messages within five minutes.

He liked knowing that his family was healthy and contented. And it wasn't, and Sam wasn't happy.

Maybe he should go home.

He turned off the water and stood, dripping and naked and still a little sparkly, in Steve's guest bath shower. His head ached and his chin dripped blood and his heart hurt. A little boy's irrational wish _I wish everything was different_ passed, unmarked, through his head, shunted aside like every other wish Sam had had the past two years. He automatically stripped the water from his limbs and stepped numbly out of the shower stall. He dried himself, noting dully that he left glitter behind on his towel, and pulled on clean clothes. He could hear voices in Steve's bedroom, Clint's low growl, Steve's decisive baritone. No Bucky. Sam supposed he was either vacuuming glitter, or hiding from Steve.

Or maybe from Sam.

He picked up his glittery clothes and stepped over the mess on the tile floor, and exited the bathroom. He passed through Steve's spare bedroom, only mildly satisfied to be leaving a trail of glitter behind him, and crossed the living room to Steve's sliding glass door, and thence to his patio. He leaned over the back fence and shook out his glittery clothes on the scrub leading up to the dune at the back of the neighborhood. An impossibly tall, skinny bird was standing on the dune, staring at him with baleful black eyes. It snapped up a passing bug and grunted, stepping awkwardly through the tussocks into the early morning sunlight. Big, golden clouds massed to the east; shining crow-like birds that Bucky called grackles perched in the fruit trees next door, warbling and clucking at each other like posturing teenagers. He hung his clothes on the fence and dug his phone out of his pocket. He had missed twelve texts from Mary.

 **MARY: Mamas bed is SOAKED we are out of pads, how do you get pee out of a mattress**

 **MARY: she won't eat the eggs and grits I gave her, keeps sayign she wants pancakes but I used up all the eggs and we don't have bisquik how do I take her to iHop if she won't stop peeing herself**

 **MARY: she has told me the same story twelve times about the dog grampa shot, why is she talking about something like that, I don't want to hear it but she keeps saying it**

 **MARY: she tried to help me do the dishes and wouldn't keep her fingers off the knife so I took it away from her and then she yelled and threw it**

 **MARY: I caved don't make fun of me she is watching Judge Judy god I hate this show but it keeps her quiet**

 **MARY: her nose is runny and she keeps wiping it on her fingers and then on her pants, god how do we get her to stop, I tried to wipe her nose and she yelled at me**

 **MARY: more Judge Judy oh god I'm gonna go crazy here how do you do it please come home I can't do this anymore**

 **MARY: she fell asleep on the toilet and I tried to keep her from falling and she bit me, since when is she biting people**

 **MARY: I have no clean towels or sheets left, I tried to wash them but she kept opening the washing machine and stopping the cycle and cried when I got angry**

 **MARY: She just wiped her nose with the tatted lace doily great aunt Maisie made,it's ruined I can't clean it, she just ruined a family heirloom**

 **MARY: I cant do this**

 **MARY: please come home**

Sam took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and counted to twenty. He could hear Bucky and Steve's next door neighbors talking cheerfully together, a background of easy listening music, birdsong, and the low hum of an airplane. The sun flickered warmly on him, filtered through palm fronds and orange blossoms. Bucky's sprinkler system groaned and clicked, forcing metal heads through concrete donuts and spraying water on his back yard; birds squawked and fluttered. Somewhere down the street, someone started a lawn mower. The Florida air was heavy, sweet and salty, with light breaths of sulfur and exhaust and grass. Sam opened his eyes and typed.

 **SAM: I can't come home now. I have to finish this job. Now you know what I go through every day, day after day. I never complained to you because I figured it was my duty. Well now it's your duty. Suck it up. You ain't special. We are all her children and we all have to step up. Quit whining. Do your duty by our Mama the way Sarah and I been doing all this time while you were sitting at home bitching we weren't doing enough. You see how hard it is? I need a break. Leave me alone already. Bad enough I went through a war and now I gotta wipe my mother's ass. You never done nothing hard in your life, everything been handed to you. Do you some good to work for a change. Your problem is you're spoiled.**

His thumb hovered over "SEND." He hit "BACKSPACE" instead.

 **SAM: I can't come home now. I have to finish this job.**

Sam hit "SEND" and turned his phone off.

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"You're back!" warbled Mrs. Schumacher happily. She was wearing pink again, and Murray was barking and wriggling in her arms. Bucky scooped him up and kissed the top of his scruffy little head. Sam had a sudden epiphany that Winter Soldier and dog were both equally scrappy and probably had been just as equally abused before being rescued. He didn't like this train of thought and tamped it down. He still wanted to be mad at Bucky for the glitter fiasco, but Bucky had been so quiet and contrite, gazing wide-eyed at Sam and solicitously filling his coffee, making his sandwich, playing Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On" on his cassette player in his beautiful Barracuda. Why did Bucky Barnes listen to Marvin Gaye, anyway? Had he discovered it on his own, or had Steve told him Sam liked it?

He would probably never know, because he would never ask.

The roofing tiles and replacement boards were stacked under tarps by Mrs. Schumacher's driveway, and the late Mr. Schumacher's ladder was already propped up against the eaves. An older gentleman with a round, pouchy pale face and a bucket hat stood at the end of the driveway, hands on his hips, smiling at them through thick pink lips.

"Larry," said Steve, shaking the man's hand. He turned to Sam. "This is Larry McIverton, the Homeowner's Association treasurer." As Sam shook the man's hand, Steve added under his breath: "He keeps an eye on Bunny for us."

"Things aren't right since Murray passed," the old man murmured, glancing at Mrs. Schumacher. She was chatting easily with Bucky and Clint, her eyes bright and her smile broad. "Not sure what happened. The man was rolling, simply rolling. That granddaughter of theirs couldn't've taken everything, now."

"We're looking into it," Steve assured him, also glancing at Mrs. Schumacher; his eyes were soft. "We'll put things right."

Larry McIverton grunted and shoved his hands in the pockets of his nicely-pressed seersucker shorts. "Sooner the better," he declared. "Bet Bucky's spending half his pension paying her bills."

"We've got a friend in New York helping us," said Steve. "The Maria Stark Retired Women's Relief Foundation. They're covering her until we can get her finances sorted out."

Larry gave Steve a wry look. "Did they offer to reimburse Bucky for the money he spent on her already?" he asked.

Steve made a face. "They did," he admitted. "Buck got all offended. Offer rescinded." Larry laughed.

Sam tried not to be shocked, told himself to not be shocked, but still, he was shocked just the same. Bucky had paid Mrs. Schumacher's bills? Steve was trying to get the woman's money back? There was a Stark-sponsored foundation to help retired women? He thought of the astronomical expenses incurred by Mama's medical bills and home health agency and made a face. He could still cover it. Mama wasn't as bad off as Mrs. Schumacher had been. No one had stolen Mama's money. She was fine.

Besides, what else did Sam have to spend his money on? It wasn't like he had time to date.

"All right, you beautiful sons of bitches, let's get this show on the road!" boomed Clint. He was standing on Mrs. Schumacher's roof, straddling a loose pipe and brandishing a crowbar. The sun gleamed on his blond hair and craggy features and he looked very fierce and competent. Sam recalled something Tony and Rhodey had chuckled over once, them calling Clint "Mr. Git-er-Done" and gently mocking his efficiency. But Sam knew Rhodey admired Clint, and as Sam had the deepest respect for Colonel Rhodes, he supposed he ought to admire Clint too.

That would've been easier without the Minnie Mouse tee shirt.

Mrs. Fetterman was toddling up the driveway again, this time arm-in-arm with a tiny brown woman in a brightly patterned Hawaiian shirt and salt-and-pepper hair. Steve had moved away to greet them, and gestured Sam forward. "You haven't met Gracie Alvarado," he said, and Sam shook the tiny woman's hand. She grinned and blinked up at him in the sun. "Sabra and Gracie are two of the best bakers in the neighborhood."

"Sabra's rugelach is better," said the little woman complacently.

"Your lemon-blueberry cheesecake won the food fair last year," Sabra retorted with a smile.

"You have the knack of getting a pastry nice and buttery," sighed Gracie.

"My soufflés always split; yours crown so beautifully."

"They all taste top-notch," Bucky declared, leading Mrs. Schumacher and Murray over. Murray was perched in his arms again, little brown legs sticking out like a toy's, pink tongue lolling in the morning heat. "Now cut it out, ladies; you're makin' me hungry."

Sam thought about Mama's sweet potato pies, and what they had been like before the Alzheimer's diagnosis. Flaky, tender crusts; perfect custard caramelized at the edges, dusted with cinnamon sugar. His stomach turned over. He would never have sweet potato pies that good ever again.

Larry shook the ladies' hands and took his leave, reminding Bucky and Clint that he was making up a fourth on the greens later that week with someone named Bill. Sam hadn't played golf in years. He couldn't even remember where his clubs were.

Sabra and Gracie scooped up Mrs. Schumacher and Murray to "do" St. Armand's Circle. "We'll wind it up with lunch at that nice Crab and Fin," said Gracie, waving as they left. "Enjoy the roof, boys!"

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Surprisingly enough, Sam did.

The Florida sun beat down, brilliant and thick like only the Florida sun is, heavy with moist sea air and the trill of tree frogs. Clint was as exacting a carpenter as he was a marksman, and Steve, to Sam's surprise, let him take the lead, recognizing the man's superior knowledge and experience. Bucky was amazingly compliant, following every one of Clint's instructions to the letter, cheerful and industrious and eerily competent with hammer and nail. Sam let the sun broil his back, the sting of heat through his tee shirt and shorts, the bite of sun-warmed tools and shingles on his fingers. His boots and hammer were heavy and the conversation was brusque, rude, invective-riddled and sprinkled with innuendo. They scraped the old shingles off, pulled up and replaced the rotten boards, and to the staccato accompaniment of Bucky's radio, hammered the new shingles over the tar paper. Like replacing the flapper valve in Mama's toilet, it was startlingly simple once Sam figured it out, and he cheerfully wondered how much he could make as a roofer instead of working at the VA.

Lukewarm tea and squishy sandwiches comprised their lunch, the promise of fried seafood and key lime pie that evening making the rude meal that much sweeter. Sam could almost feel the cool Gulf water on his legs, the give of the damp shell-speckled sand beneath his feet and the sharp bite of the hot wind streaking across his shoulders. This time tomorrow, he told himself, he would be body-surfing on Coquina Beach and Bucky would be grilling oysters while Steve handed round cold beer and Clint stretched out on the sand. He had seen the Saltines and homemade hot sauce in Bucky's kitchen, and knew there was a bushel of fresh oysters on call for them at the docks with their names on it. It was so close he could practically taste it, made a hundred times better by the toil and sweat of Mrs. Schumacher's roof, and the anticipation of a swim in the ocean and a tumble in the waves.

The afternoon sun stretched their shadows across the bungalow roof. Towering stacks of cottony clouds curved over them against the turquoise dome of the sky, and the breeze picked up, alternately hot and cool, blowing sea birds and song birds careening and rollicking around them, their squawks and trills drowned in the rattle and clatter of palm tree fronds and the whistle of the wind. Clint let Bucky nail the last shingle in, grinning down at him and saying: "This is your project, buddy. Your decision to do right by this lady. Good for you, man." Sam's chest swelled and his throat felt tight. Bucky's gleaming metal hand held the shingle down, the big roofer's hammer gripped in his muscular right hand. _Bang bang,_ and all four of them cheered; Mrs. Schumacher's roof was finished.

They collected their gear and swept up the detritus, replaced the ladder and stacked the old shingles and boards into the back of Bucky's friend's pickup truck to be hauled away the next morning. The late afternoon sun gilded the neighborhood, the big Towncars and Crown Vics gliding past, older couples walking their dogs and pausing to admire their work, great herons black against the tangerine sky, their wings like boomerangs. And Mrs. Schumacher cried, very prettily Sam thought, dabbing her big black eyes with a lacy handkerchief, and embracing them all in turn. All in all, Sam decided, it was worth Mary being mad at him, as Mrs. Schumacher's thin little arms wound around his neck and she wobbily professed undying gratitude. It wasn't Mama's fault that she never thanked Sam for what he did, but still, it was nice now and then to get a sincere thank-you.

"Murray and I are just so _grateful_ to you all," Mrs. Schumacher gushed, and Sabra and Gracie beamed along beside her. "Such nice young men, all of you!" She smiled, tears trembling on her lashes, and said, "Such _lovely_ boys!"

"Our pleasure, ma'am," said Clint, and let her kiss him again. "I'll bring the kids around next time we're down. Lila's getting a kayak."

"I'll be sure to pick you up next Thursday on my way to the Homeowner's Association Meeting," Steve told her solemnly, pecking her desiccated brown cheek. "You said you wanted to thank the Amity Board, and this will be your chance."

"Yes, yes," burbled Mrs. Schumacher, grasping his enormous hands in her own little ones. "Everyone is so kind to me! I just don't know what I'd do without all of you to take such an interest!"

"Now, you know we'd do anything for you," said Bucky with a grin.

"I know _you_ would," said Mrs. Schumacher, letting her embrace him. "I know I'm just a placeholder until you find that redhead again!" Bucky blushed, much to Sam's surprise. "And that reminds me," added Mrs. Schumacher, taking Steve's hand again. "Be sure to tell that nice Maria girl I said hello, won't you?"

"I will," promised Steve with a grin.

"And you, Sam," said Mrs. Schumacher, kissing Sam on the cheek; she smelled like lilacs and sunshine. "I know your mother must be so proud of you. What a fine, handsome young man you are! Yes," she added thoughtfully, taking him by the chin. "We really must find you a yenta."

They piled into Bucky's car with Clint's and Sam's toolboxes, and waved good-bye to Mrs. Schumacher and Murray standing in the driveway. The little pink bungalow glowed in the evening light, new shingles dark and sparkling over the white gutters and eaves. Sam's back burned against the black leather seats, and Bucky flipped the tape in the player. Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" shuffled smoothly out of the speakers.

For that moment, that one hot, sticky, perfect moment, Sam felt happy for the first time in over a year.

 **XXXXXXXXXXX**

There was still glitter on the floor of the shower. Sam smiled at it as it swirled down the drain. That was a pretty funny prank. He wondered how Bucky had managed to set it up without anyone noticing. Guy was slick, that one; you never knew where he was coming from.

He sloughed off the sweat, the dirt, the grit from the shingles, the water lukewarm, the soap astringent. He dried off with a big, fluffy towel and stretched. His skin felt tight and warm, his eyes stinging. He pulled on his shorts and tee shirt and noticed someone had put a bottle of his favorite beer on the bathroom counter when he wasn't looking. Steve? Clint? Bucky? He didn't care. He took a long draught; it was ice cold, zithing down his throat. They were going to go out to a dive bar on Siesta Key for fried oysters and hush puppies and beer and karaoke, and Sam was going to stuff his face and sing Otis Redding and James Brown and Lady Gaga and drink tequila shots until he passed out, and let Steve and Bucky drag his sorry ass home. He was even looking forward to the hangover.

Sort of.

He hung up his only slightly glittery towel and strolled out of the guest bath, through Steve's art room, the beer cold and wet in his hands. He could hear the low hum of his friends in the kitchen, Bucky's voice, high and insistent. Sam frowned, and walked into the living room, round the corner into Steve's kitchen. Steve, Clint, and Bucky were standing at the counter, all of them looking at him. None of them were smiling.

This wasn't good.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Your phone's blowing up," said Clint. He pushed Sam's phone, that he'd left charging next to Steve's toaster, across the Corian; it was flashing insistently. "You got twelve phone calls just in the past five minute, all from the same number."

Sam's heart bottomed out. All the happy warmth sank out of him like a spilled pot of soup. It must be Mary, dealing with Mama's Sundowners again. Why, why, why hadn't Sam brought the phone into the bathroom? He didn't need the guys to know what he was going through; it was such an anticlimax, a detraction from the reason he'd come to Florida in the first place.

"I got this," he said, but it sounded unconvincing even to himself. He picked up the phone, disconnected it. He glanced around; all three of the guys were watching him, pale eyes and pale faces concerned, too knowing. He shrugged and slouched into the living room, and thumbed it open.

Twenty-seven missed calls. All from Mary. All with voice mails.

He decided to leap ahead, and get the worst of it over with. What had Mama done this time? Shit in the tub? Hidden the mail? Broken the remote? Sam opened the latest voice mail and prepared himself for the worst.

It was so much worse.

Mary's voice, high and tight and desperate, panicking: "Sam! Samuel, call me! Call me NOW! I lost Mama! She's gone! She's gone, Samuel!"


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

Sam learned four things in the immediate aftermath of discovering his mother had disappeared.

First, SHIELD took its retirees seriously. Within five minutes, Clint announced that Agent Hill had scrambled a QuinJet for them at MacDill and awaited their arrival to take them directly to DC. While Clint drove them, at a furious pace with cop cars englobing them, sirens and bubble gum lights going full blast, Steve explained that Tampa was the closest outpost to Sarasota and that Maria Hill had sent out a Silver Alert and instructed every law enforcement agency in the DC area to search for Darlene Wilson, aged 68.

Second, Steve was amazing in an emergency. Decisive, authoritative, more than a little bossy. Sam could only hear half of his conversation with Hill, but Steve was barking out orders and asking questions and coming up with Plans A, B, C, and D seemingly off the top of his head. Was this what he'd been like in the war? Was this Captain America without his shield, taking charge, blasting through obstacles and nay-sayers and enemy lines? Sam knew Steve was human, despite the serum; he had PTSD and bad dreams and couldn't date worth shit, but in times of crisis he was larger than life, star-spangled, gleaming, competent. Sam resented him a little for this. Why was he pulling out the stops for this? What did Steve care about Sam's mother? They'd never met before; Sam had never even discussed her with him, not since the Alzheimer's diagnosis two years before.

Third, Clint was possibly bossier than Steve. Upon arriving at MacDill, Steve announced he would be flying the QuinJet personally; Bucky raised an immediate outcry, claiming Steve couldn't fly for shit, and referenced Steve ploughing the Valkyrie into the Arctic Circle instead of asking for fucking directions like he was supposed to, you dumb pin-head. Sam cursed his shaking voice but insisted that _he_ was the fly-boy; it was _his_ mother that was missing, and _he_ was going to fly the QuinJet, goddammit. ButClint waded through their arguments by declaring that he was just as good a pilot as Sam, he had more experience, he wasn't emotionally compromised, and he was going to fly them to Morningside, dammit, and they could just shut their fucking mouths and deal with it. Sam kind of fell a little in love with Clint at that moment.

Fourth, Sam didn't have any chill anymore.

He had always prided himself on his ability to keep his head and roll with the punches. Even when Sam lost his temper, it was controlled, wound tight like a clenched fist ready to let fly. It was possible, of course, that all of Sam's chill – what was left over after Iraq, anyway – had been slowly eroded by the continual stress of caring for Mama. He hadn't recognized how far gone he'd been in a panic attack until, sitting in the QuinJet jump seat, he felt cold metal fingers pressing lightly on the inside of his right wrist, and the Winter Soldier, his face partially obscured by stringy dark hair, murmuring softly: " _Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra_ …" The soft Latin phrases folded in and out around the noise of the jet and Steve's tactical debates on the radio with Hill, Bucky intoning the prayer with the instinctive confidence of the chronic Catholic. Sam's breathing sounded loud and erratic in his own ears, his heartbeat tripping madly behind his breastbone, but the Winter Soldier's invocation weirdly grounded him.

Sam didn't process any of this until days later, when the adrenaline kick and subsequent withdrawal had finally faded. At the time, his consciousness was a tornado with the faces of his sisters, his Mama, and all the horrible things that could happen to a person in the dark roaring through his mind.

It was ten PM when they arrived at Mama's condo in Morningside. Sarah was already there, her little red sports car drawn up next to Mary's SUV, pretty slanted eyes puffy with crying and her weave disarranged. She flew into Sam's arms, all bird-bones shaking, hiccupping, "We can't find her, Sam, we can't find her, we can't find her anywhere!" And then there was Mary, dissolved in tears and snot, exhausted by her hysterics. Tyree was behind his own Mama, looking lost and scared and patting her shoulder and saying weakly, "It's not your fault, Mama," but everyone in the room knew it was.

Sam didn't know what his face looked like when he rounded on his older sister, but it must've been bad enough for Steve to take him firmly by one elbow and say tersely, "Okay, what happened?"

Police lights and trim, blue-clad Maria Hill murmuring into her communicator; Sarah's shrill recriminations of "I told you, I told you!" interrupted by Mary's sobbing and wringing her hands: "She wouldn't – she needed to put on her diaper – she kept taking it off – I told her – I told her if she was gonna act like a baby she'd get treated like one – she slapped me – " Then Sam saw the bruise under Mary's eye, obscured by wet mascara. "I was mad – and upset – I put her in the bedroom, sat in the kitchen to calm down – I, I was so tired, I guess I dropped off – and when I woke up –"

Door open, Mama gone.

Sam had never wanted his wings back more than at that moment. He knew, empirically, that between the DC Metro Police and Hill's men, Mama was being searched for in the most logical and efficient way possible. That didn't detract from him wanting to scour the city on his own, screaming for her. The sun had gone down hours ago, and while Morningside wasn't the worst suburb of DC, there were parts of it you didn't want to wander around after dark.

While Steve and Maria Hill talked englobement and search parameters and Clint offered his opinion on grids and tech, Sam could only sit between Sarah and Mary on the old green sofa, head in his hands. He could feel the rough, new growth of hair on his cheeks beneath his palms, the double thump of his heartbeat through his fingertips. His bare knees bending out of his cargo shorts were ashy and trembly. There was a stray sparkle, gold, on his thigh. Sam covered his eyes and pressed his palms in until the phosphines flared behind his lids. The electronic chatter of equipment, the low drone of policemen, Steve Rogers, decisive, Maria Hill, authoritative, Clint Barton, dry and quiet. Clint was talking to Mary. "I know you've already been asked this a hundred times," he was saying, calm as though Mama's life wasn't in danger. "But just try to think."

The door, continuously opening and closing. The constant squeak of booted feet on the linoleum, reminding Sam painfully of how his mother shuffled through the house in her slippers, slow, random. How far could she possibly get? Where could she have gone? _Where was she?_ Every street name he'd blurted had been covered in those first five minutes; uniformed officers, helmeted SHIELD personnel filtered in and out of Mama's living room; the low thup-thup-thup of a helicopter fretted the edges of his hearing. Mary was sniffling, and Sarah was catching her breath on every third inhale, like a toddler coming down from a tantrum. Tyree was silent, staring wordless and a little overwhelmed at the staccato of officialdom in his grandmother's home. He was wearing a letter jacket. When had he lettered? Sam didn't even know. Mary had probably told him and he had probably said "That's nice" and he had probably – no, most likely – forgotten all about it.

Sam was a shit uncle.

Sam was a shit brother.

Sam was a shit son.

No Bucky holding his wrist and praying the Paternoster. Sam would probably forget to thank him. Sam was a shit friend, if friends they even were. The fact that Sam wasn't sure if they were friends at all was a pretty good indication that Sam was a shit friend on top of being a shit everything else. He couldn't even search and rescue his own Mama. Sam was a shit SNR.

He had let Riley die.

He had quit the Avengers.

He had left Mama, and now Mama was gone.

Sam was as startled as everyone else at the violent sob that tore through him. Everything was crashing down; the noise and the chaos and the fear pressed too tight around him and his chest was bursting. Sarah's tentative pat-pat on his shoulder was a mosquito's bite and he twisted away; his bones felt like water and his eyes were on fire.

Hard, calloused hands gripped his forearms, tanned and freckled skin pale against his own, the pressure just this side of pain, bringing him back. "Breathe, Wilson." Clint, kneeling on the floor in front of him, the carpet urine-spotted and bleached with scrubbing, Clint's gray eyes in his craggy face looking up at him, shaking him a little. "That's right. Breathe out. Yeah, it's okay, I don't give a shit if you're crying, no one does. Just breathe, man. Just breathe."

Sam had no idea how long it took him to come back to himself, only knew the gimlet stare of the retired assassin frowning up at him, the tight hold of those deadly, competent fingers, the soft injunction to breathe, breathe, breathe. The room spun, the incandescent light from Mama's pitted brass lamps too bright, the muffled hum of conversation indistinct except for Mary's sobs: "I'm so sorry, Samuel. I'm so sorry."

"I'm okay," Sam said, his voice loose and wobbly. Clint handed him a tissue and Sam blew; he wondered how long he'd been crying. "I'm okay."

"Yeah, that's bullshit and we both know it," smiled Clint, sitting back on his heels and crossing his arms across his chest. He cast his glance from side to side, taking in Sam's sisters. "When was she diagnosed?"

"It's been two years," breathed Sarah; she was crying too. "We got a day nurse, but they're so expensive, and we've been trying to watch her, but – "

"I didn't know," wailed Mary, wringing her hands. "I didn't know – I didn't know how bad she was – "

"We kept telling you – " Sarah burst angrily.

"I know, I know." Mary was rocking back and forth. "I'm so sorry, you two, I'm so sorry. I didn't listen."

"So we stuck with just a night nurse," Sarah told Clint. Somehow he was holding her hand, eyes pools of sympathy, and Sarah was clutching at him, some little girl part of her yearning for a father to take her nightmares away. "The nurses are just so expensive, and Sam said he would take the day shift during the week, and I'd take weekends I wasn't working, but the nurses kept changing, and then work started scheduling me weekends and I couldn't get away, and – "

"It's fine, it's fine" protested Sam. What would they think, that he couldn't handle it? Of course he could handle it; he was supposed to handle it. She was his goddamn _mother_ ; how could someone who put in two tours in Iraq not handle an old lady who burned sweet potato pies and watched Judge Judy?

"It's _not_ fucking fine, Samuel," snapped Sarah. "It's too much, it's too much for you to take, and we wanted you to have a break, it's just not fair – "

"I know." Clint smiled and took both her slim brown hands in his own. "I know. When Laura's grandmother was diagnosed, and we had to put her in a home, it was the hardest decision we'd ever made. Because we had the room, we could keep her at home; she was family, it's what you're supposed to do, right? But it's hard when they can't control their bladders and can't remember who you are, isn't it? It wears on you, day after day, it sands you down 'til there's no grip left on you."

"Yeah," said Sam, cold rushing through his limbs like he'd been dunked in the clubhouse pool. "That's how – yeah. That's exactly how it feels." Sanded down, worn down, smooth and thin and brittle. That was how he felt. He met Clint's eye; the archer was grimacing a little.

"You coulda told us, man," he said gently. "Did you think we wouldn't understand?"

 _Yes,_ Sam knew he had to say, and _No,_ because if he'd actually thought about it, of course they would have understood. Steve and Bucky especially; hadn't Steve watched Peggy deteriorate, recognizing him some days, others days calling security on him? And Bucky; his memory was as full of holes as a homemade sieve, and just as cutting, rusted edges and blank spots.

Steve loomed into view. Those ridiculous blue eyes were pools of concern and compassion. "We're doing everything we can," he said, then made a face as though he realized how hollow that phrase sounded. "I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't know."

"I didn't tell you," said Sam. He hesitated, rubbing his palms together. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, fly-boy," said Steve, giving Sam that stupid sideways grin he always used to such devastating effect on Sarah's friends. "But you ought to know better, Mr. Tell Me Everything."

"Oh, he's real good at makin' other people talk," sniffled Sarah. "Never says nothin' himself."

"I'm so sorry," Mary said again, and this time Sam took her hand in his own. She was trembling.

"Enough with the apologies," said Hill crisply, looming over them, her arms crossed. Sam thought she looked irritated. "We've established perimeters at Andrews, Forest Hills, and Highway 5 and are canvassing all neighborhoods and businesses. I've got boots in the ground, eyes in the sky, and we're watching the net and social media. We'll find her; it's just a matter of time." She blinked her so-very-blue eyes then and narrowed them at him; there was no smile breaking the smooth porcelain of her face. "Sam Wilson, you're an idiot."

Sam started and stared, and Steve stood up beside her, frowning. "Maria," he chided; he was massive and rumpled beside her china-white perfection, but she only raised an eyebrow at him, and shook her head.

"We have protocols in place for these situations," she snapped. "You know that too damn well, Steve." Steve looked down and rubbed the back of his neck, and Maria rounded on Sam. "Did you even _read_ your retirement paperwork before you signed it?" she demanded. Sam must've looked nonplussed, because she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Jesus Christ, Wilson."

"There's a family assistance program for SHIELD retirees, Sam," grinned Clint. "Next time? Read the fine print."

"You mean to tell me," said Sarah slowly, "that SHIELD would've helped us with Mama?"

"That's right," said Hill, quirking a small smile down at Sarah. "And even for non-family members, there are resources available for senior citizens."

"We plugged into that for Mrs. Schumacher," said Steve. "Maria's sorting through that herself, right, Bucky?"

There was a brief silence. Steve, Maria, and Clint looked around, from policemen to SHIELD operatives to suited agents speaking into earpieces.

"Where's Bucky?" asked Clint.

"Probably in the bathroom," grumbled Steve, stalking off. Maria turned to Sam, Mary, and Sarah.

"I'll contact Pepper personally," she said. "There's no need for you three to run yourselves ragged doing something a trained LPN can do better, with less effort, and no emotional strain."

"The foundation's employees are really good," Clint assured them. "Much better than regular retirement homes or home health care agencies. These are top-notch caregivers, trust me." He gave a lopsided grin. "Only the best for SHIELD families."

"Well, that'll be a big relief when we actually _find_ Mama," said Sarah, a little acerbically. "Samuel, don't you still have them wings of yours? Can't you go find her yourself?"

"Don't go getting your brother into trouble, now," said Maria sternly. "The Falcon is retired, and so are his wings. Be a shame to get your mother set up in a nice home only to have Sam lose his benefits."

Steve rushed across the living room. His eyes looked a little panicked. "I can't find Bucky," he blurted, his voice tight. In the back of Sam's mind was the thought, _See how it feels, asshole?_ But Maria Hill straightened, set her jaw, and glared through her glittering blue eyes up at Steve.

"Are you trying to tell me you lost Bucky _again_?" she demanded.

Sam felt a hysterical laugh bubble up at Steve's aggrieved expression. "I was distracted!" Steve protested. "I was talking to Sam!"

"He's probably grabbing a smoke outside," said Clint offhandedly, but Sam noticed he stood up too, shoulders straight, and glanced around sharply.

"I checked outside," insisted Steve. "He's not there, either." He scowled. "I swear, if this is one of his pranks – "

"Oh, you two are _not_ having another of your prank wars," growled Maria, eyes flashing. "Last time you did that, it took me two weeks to clean your shit up."

"I know," pleaded Steve. "But we were careful this time. We even made a rule that we weren't allowed to pull pranks in public, after what happened at the golf course."

Maria shook her head disbelievingly. "My god," she said. "You two are going to kill me."

"I'm sorry?" Steve attempted, giving Maria what Sam knew was Steve's most appealing lost puppy expression, but she was not having any of it. She stared him down until he blushed, then threw her hands into the air.

"Fuck Nick Fury for making me your case manager," she exclaimed, letting her hands drop to her sides. "I swear to God, you two are _not_ worth the pay raise." She turned away and clicked the communicator in her ear, glaring at Steve, who at least had the good grace to look abashed. "Sir," she said into the communicator, "we have another problem."


	6. Chapter 6

_(A/N: Hello, gentle – and patient! – readers. Again, my apologies for the radio silence. My father's condition has degenerated to the point he was a danger to himself and my mother, and we've had to put him in a home._

 _This fic was meant to be cathartic, but has struck too many nerves along the way. I'm so sorry. One more chapter, and I promise I'll write something more cheerful.)_

 **6.**

A decorated war veteran knows well the meaning of "waking nightmare." You can't watch your friends and colleagues get blown to bits, or see civilians reduced to pink spray, or think of the constant and wearying thrum of imminent death without hoping, at least once a day, that it is a dream you'll soon wake from. And as the horrible hours wear on with no respite, the soul fractures a little under the weight of the reality that there is no waking with a start in a warm safe bed from this misery. It can't be ended, only endured.

Sam's back and shoulders ached. At first he assumed it was from stress; then he remembered Mrs. Schumacher's roof and realized his body was reacting to his labors for an entirely different little old lady. Maria had established Mama's condo as her operations center, and searchers stomped in and out all night. Her communicator was always on, and she was constantly updating the grid on her tablet. One by one the boxes were checked off; it reminded Sam a little of playing "Battleship:" surely, eventually, one of the pegs would land true, and Mama would be found.

By four AM, that fragile confidence was gone.

Sarah and Mary had fallen asleep; Tyree was slumped in a dining room chair, trying in vain to stay awake but nodding off every five minutes. Clint and Steve were no help whatsoever. Steve had discovered Bucky's phone under a bush by Mama's front door. Bucky couldn't be tracked, or called, and Sam knew if the Winter Soldier wanted to cut and run, there were probably only three people on the planet who could bring him in again. Sam watched Steve slip into a controlled panic, and watched Clint deal with him, cool, competent. There were apparently some serious legal ramifications tied to Bucky's disappearance, and Steve was, not surprisingly, taking this defection poorly. He was alternately angry and apprehensive but, Sam noted, not apologetic. Maria was unsympathetic.

"I told you the next time he ran off, the WSC was going to tighten his leash," she snapped, when Steve tried to explain the rebellious behavior away. "I don't care that he's not doing anything wrong. Until he hits the two-year mark, his job is to stay put and under surveillance, and he knows it."

"He's been under an agency's thumb for longer than either of us have been alive," Clint remarked coolly. Unlike Steve, he didn't flinch under Maria's sharp tongue, and her glare only made him smirk. "Red Room, Hydra, now our beloved leaders. Not surprised he wants to cut loose on his own now and then."

"He cuts loose enough," snapped Maria. "And it's not like he isn't aware he's being watched. The surveillance team has snapshots of him flipping the cameras off before he dismantles them."

"We all like our privacy," said Clint dryly. "Maybe he wants to take a shit in peace for a change."

Steve's head went up and he looked at Maria, shocked. To Sam's surprise, she colored. "That," she said through gritted teeth, "is not my call, and you know it, Hawkeye."

"I know," said Clint easily. "I also know Fury tipped him off." At Maria's rolled eyes, Clint added: "Fury likes him."

"Wait," said Sam, some of the panic-induced fog lifting. "Fury likes Bucky?"

"Oddly enough, yes," admitted Maria.

"But Bucky shot him!" Sam protested.

"He shot me, too," said Steve, quirking a smile. "Bucky shoots a lot of people."

"I always wondered why Fury gave you these guys to manage," said Clint, gesturing at Steve and, by proxy Sam supposed, Bucky. "He coulda taken them himself."

"He has you," said Maria flatly. "That's plenty."

Clint grinned. "At least he told me where the bugs were."

"Wait," said Sam. "Do you mean to tell me you bugged _me?_ "

Maria stared at him a moment. "No," she said slowly. "Your case manager said you were low-risk; said we might as well bug Rhodey. He didn't think there was a need."

"I have a case manager?" asked Sam, bewildered.

"You _did_ ," said Maria, frowning. "Hold on. Let me check HQ." She started typing on her tablet, then said grimly: "And when I found out who it is, I am gonna tear him a new one for letting this go on as long as it has. This situation should've gone up the chain last year."

While she typed, Steve turned to Sam. "Fury gave Bucky and me to Maria to be our case manager," he said. "Said she was the only one I'd trust." He gave the scowling Maria a saccharine smile. "He was right."

"You're a pain in the ass, Cap," said Maria absently; she was reading something on her tablet.

"Bucky's a bigger pain in the ass," Steve said, looking a little hurt.

"And do you do anything about it? No," said Maria. "Sam, I see what happened. Your case manager retired two months after he was assigned to you, and no one bothered giving you a new one." She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Goddammit. This is unbelievable. That supervisor is going to wish he'd taken the early retirement option, because I'm going to bust his ass down to file clerk."

"Dropped the ball, eh?" said Clint.

"Like a chunk of lava," said Maria. She gave Sam a kind look. "I'm sorry, Sam. You ended up in a bureaucratic vacuum – that's why no one reached out to you about getting you and your sisters help with your mother." She shook her head and pursed her lips. "Totally unacceptable."

" _You_ could be his case manager," said Steve hopefully.

Maria gave him a dirty look. "Don't you think I've already got my hands full with you two assholes?" she said. "Between you suborning the Governor's aides, and Bucky bird-dogging every girl in Sarasota, I'm scrubbing surveillance tape on my days off to cover your sorry asses."

"It's not that we don't appreciate it – " began Steve.

"Oh, please," said Maria, waving him off. "Show me a little goddamn appreciation by _not_ getting in trouble every three weeks, and maybe I'll believe you." Her tablet chimed and she frowned down at it. "Speaking of," she said slowly, "here's a message from Archives."

"Archives?" echoed Clint, surprised.

Maria held up a hand for silence, and they waited while she read. Her face went from annoyed to troubled. "Okay," she said. "Steve, has Bucky ever mentioned remembering anything about the March on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement?"

"No," said Steve; he looked uneasy. "He tries not to remember stuff from when he was – before."

"The March on Washington, that was MLK, and the others, the Big Six, right?" said Sam.

"August 28, 1963," said Tyree suddenly from his dining room chair. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked gray and exhausted, but he was alert. "We just studied that in History. They marched on the Mall, up to the Lincoln Memorial. Two hundred fifty thousand of us," he said; his young face was owlish. "That was where Martin Luther King Jr. did his Dream speech."

"I have a dream," intoned Steve softly, " 'I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal." '" He smiled sadly. "I slept through that, unfortunately."

"Well, Bucky didn't," said Maria. Her porcelain face had gone even whiter. "Archives found a report that the Winter Soldier was _here_ – in Morningside – on August 26, 1963." She looked grim. "Guess why."

There was dead silence while this sank in.

"Oh, god," whispered Steve.

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Dawn broke with no news of either runaway. Maria, worn down by Steve and Sam's constant barrage of pleas to help, kicked them out of Mama's condo with Clint and an agent apiece. "Go," she snapped; her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed, but her hair and uniform were just as perfect as ever. "Get the hell out of my hair. You want to help? Boots on the ground, if you can't leave me the hell alone." So they split up, heading for the few parts of the grid that hadn't been combed over by Maria's men.

Sam trudged along an old, shabby street, still blue-shadowed in the western lea of the dilapidated buildings. Abandoned tenements with busted-out windows and graffiti, filthy gas stations, their parking lots choked with rubbish and weeds, a sad string of stores just raising their battered shutters, proprietors sweeping up trash off their front steps and turning plastic signs to read "OPEN." All of them regarded him suspiciously, especially with the suited and sunglassed white agent trailing him; but they all looked at Mama's picture, and answered his query the same: They hadn't seen her.

"Excuse me," said Sam. His clothes were soaked in sweat and he could smell himself. He held out Mama's picture. "Have you seen this lady?" When the woman stopped and looked at him, he added, "This is my Mama. She has Alzheimer's. She wandered off yesterday and we gotta find her."

He had said the same thing over, and over, and over again. The four cups of coffee he'd had were making his stomach nauseated and his hands shaky. His aches had gone past bone-deep and were bothering him on a molecular level. He was pretty sure that, in a couple of hours, they would go subatomic. The sour, sticky air smelled like exhaust and urine.

"Excuse me. Have you seen this lady? This is – "

"Fuck off, man."

"Excuse me. Have you –"

"Keep movin'."

"Excuse me. Have you seen this lady? This is my Mama and – "

"No, thank you."

"Excuse me. Have you seen this lady? This is my Mama. She has – "

"Nope."

"Excuse me. Have you seen this lady? This – "

"Yeah, man, I seen her."

Sam was shaken out of his well-trod trench; he blinked sandy eyes. The young man lolled in front of a shitty Rite-Aid, its front step crusted with dried vomit. One of the plate glass windows was cracked. But the man looked down at Mama's photo, rather prominent eyes studying Mama's confused face intently.

"You have?" Sam asked blankly. He felt the agent behind him snap to attention. The young man glanced nervously at the suited and armed white man, and Sam waved the agent off; he moved a few yards away reluctantly. "You've seen her? Where?"

"Yeah, man, here," said the young man, pointing to the Rite-Aid. "She in there now."

Sam could hardly believe it. Three hours of canvassing some of the worst blocks in Morningside had worn him numb. "Oh, okay," he said. "Thanks, man."

The young man looked at the agent again, showing the whites of his eyes, then slouched off, hands in his low-slung jeans. The agent had approached Sam, one finger on his earpiece. "Want me to call it in?" he asked, his eagerness barely masked by crisp professionalism.

"Chill the fuck out, will you?" said Sam tiredly. It was possible, of course, that Mama wasn't in there at all. But clinging to hope, Sam stepped into the old Rite-Aid, the agent on his heels.

The clerk at the front register, a massive young woman with an elaborate purple and red weave, looked at him strangely as he approached the counter, hands out. "No soliciting," she said firmly.

"Excuse me," said Sam. He was so tired he could curl up on the stained linoleum and sleep for a week. "Have you seen this lady?"

She frowned and took the picture, then her face cleared, and she gave a big, gap-toothed smile. "Oh, yeah!" she said, and pointed one plump, brightly manicured hand to the back of the store. "At the pharmacy."

"Thank you," said Sam, still disbelieving. It couldn't be.

He and the agent walked through the neat, shabby aisles to the back wall, where part of the pharmacy sign read "P AR A Y". A tall, slim, dark man in a white coat was standing behind the counter staring at them.

"Excuse me," began Sam, then stopped.

Mama sat on one of the plastic chairs by the blood pressure machine. She was wearing a cheap blue sweat suit and rubber flip-flops, and was staring up at the little black TV squawking Jude Judy in the corner. A malodorous plastic Rite-Aid bag was knotted in a bundle beneath her; Sam could see the faint pattern of Mama's favorite shorts, stained with feces. Her hair was combed back, her face shiny and clean, her hands folded calmly in her lap. And sitting beside her, feeding her yogurt with a plastic spoon, was the Winter Soldier.

He stared at Sam, and Sam stared back. He heard the agent speak quietly into his ear piece, but didn't mark what was said. Bucky's pale eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed; he was dirty, shaggy, and pasty. He scooped up more yogurt – blueberry, Mama's favorite – and silently offered it to Mama. Mama opened her mouth, took the yogurt off the spoon, and chewed, watching Judge Judy raptly.

"Hey, man," said Sam, weak with relief. Bucky only stared back blankly, and suddenly Sam's secret fears Mama wouldn't recognize him were replaced by much more urgent fears that Bucky had no idea who he was.

Bucky lowered the yogurt. His steel blue eyes were cold and expressionless. "Mission report," he said.

"No," said Sam, his heart sinking. "No, man. Listen."

"August 26, 1963, Mission Report," said the Winter Soldier stubbornly. "Target located in the private residence of –"

"Could I have some more … more … " Mama's gaze wandered haphazardly from Judge Judy, across Sam's face, unrecognizing, pausing on the endcap display of cold medicine. "Could I have some more?"

Bucky's eyes flickered to the left, then he turned to Mama. "Yes, ma'am, of course," he said. He frowned and blinked, then scooped another spoonful of yogurt into Mama's mouth.

"Bucky," said Sam.

"Mission Report," Bucky whispered, and set the yogurt on the empty chair next to him. He stared at Sam's feet. Sam glanced at the pharmacist, who shook his head slightly. Sam could hear the agent speaking in the front of the store, the nasal Midwestern tone such a contrast to the Morningside Sam knew so well, the Morningside of 1963, teeming with the revolutionaries, the militants, the disenfranchised, the hopeful, the angry. And a little huddle of Hydra agents, sending out their weapon to change the course of history.

Sam took two tentative steps forward, not sure what Bucky would do – whether he was the Winter Soldier, or James B. Barnes, Sam couldn't tell. Mama didn't seem to notice him at all.

"Bucky," said Sam again, very softly. "Hey. Do you know where you are?"

"Morningside, Maryland, United States," said Bucky to the floor. "It's August … August … "

"It's August," said Sam gently. "But it's not 1963. You're good, man. You're fine. Everything's all right."

Bucky looked up at him, his pale eyes hurt and confused. He looked so much like Mama then, when Sam had to explain to her that Daddy was gone, that he was leaving her with the night nurse, that he'd already had dinner. Sam's heart turned over in his chest. He knelt on the greasy linoleum and looked up into Bucky's face, dirty, sweat-streaked, unshorn, framed by matted dark hair, mouth tilted sadly down. Mama was humming along with the Judge Judy theme tune and didn't seem to know they were there.

Slowly, carefully, Sam put one hand on Bucky's metal arm. He could feel the adamantium plates shift and hum beneath his palm, testament to its owner's distress. He squeezed once, lightly.

"Hey," he said.

Bucky looked down at Sam's hand, then raised his right arm. Sam tensed, then forced himself to relax as Bucky extended one index finger and brought it down slowly, the white digit resting like a moth on Sam's dark skin. Something caught the light by Bucky's fingernail: a piece of glitter, sparkling gold under the flickering fluorescent light above them.

"Sam?" said Bucky wonderingly.

Sam let out the breath he had been holding in a long, slow whoosh. "Yeah, man," he said, grinning crookedly up at the sad, twisted face above him. "Yeah. It's Sam. I been lookin' for you, man. You got Steve all hot an' bothered, runnin' off like that."

"Looking –" Bucky frowned, thinking hard, then he snatched his hand away, and shook Sam off. "Oh, fuck," he said, eyes widening.

"Language," said Mama firmly, turning to them. She frowned down at Sam, then her face broke into a smile, and she beamed.

"Samuel!" she exclaimed. " _There_ you are. I been waiting for hours for you to come pick me up. I think my pills are ready."

Sam knew he was going to cry, and although he really didn't want to cry in front of Bucky and the pharmacist and the SHIELD agent, he couldn't seem to help himself. He could feel his face crumple, his sinuses sting and his throat close up, and he dropped his forehead and sobbed, Bucky's hand on his shoulder, and Mama's on his head.


End file.
